SARATOGA SPRINGS — Charles “Charlie” William Kerner passed away peacefully in his home on Monday, Dec. 8 at the age of 99.
Born in 1915 in Bayonne, New Jersey, Charlie was a WWII veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy as an Aviation Cadet. He lived in Bloomfield, New Jersey before getting married and moving to North Caldwell, New Jersey to raise a family.
Charlie was married to Peggy Byrne Kerner from 1950 until she passed away in October of 2007.
His professional career was as an engineer and production manager in a variety of manufacturing industries. After his retirement, from 1985 until 2006, Charlie lived in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. He has resided at Prestwick Chase, a senior living community in Saratoga Springs, since 2006.
Charlie was educated as a mechanical engineer with a master’s in Business Administration. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Newark College of Engineering and earned his MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
In the 1950s and into the 1960s, Charlie worked at and then managed a fire extinguisher manufacturing facility for Walter Kidde & Company. In the mid-1960s Charlie was hired by the Howmet Corporation to work in their Austenal dental and orthopedic products manufacturing division. Howmet spun the division off as Howmedica, Inc. in 1970 and it was purchased by the global pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer in 1972. Charlie soon became a Pfizer divisional vice president, where he worked until retiring in the early 1980s. At Pfizer, he oversaw the construction of several oversees manufacturing facilities.
Charlie enjoyed power boats, alpine skiing, and tinkering with his collection of automobiles, most of which were built in the 1920s through the 1960s. He was a longtime member of the Classic Car Club of America and Club President in the early 1980s. Some of the restored vehicles from his collection were driven in parades and exhibited during car shows throughout the Eastern United States.
Survivors include his brother, Horace of Tuckerton, New Jersey; his daughter, Kathleen “Magie” Burby of Saratoga Springs; his sons, Charles of New York City, Thomas of Brookline, Massachusetts; and seven grandchildren, Joshua Burby of Princeton, New Jersey, Jacob Burby and Jordan Burby of Saratoga Springs, Catherine Kerner and Anne Kerner of New York City and Ella Kerner and Caroline Kerner of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18 at the William J. Burke & Sons/Bussing & Cunniff Funeral Homes, 628 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs (518) 584-5373. Burial with military honors will follow at 2 p.m. at the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, Duell Road, Schuylerville
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the American Heart Association, 440 New Karner Rd., Albany, NY 12205 or the Alzheimer’s Association, Pine West Plaza, Building 4 Suite 405, Washington Ave. Ext., Albany, NY 12205.
Online remembrances may be made at www.burkefuneralhome.com.
