Former SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board Director and alumnus Wendell Van Lare ’67 passed away on Friday, July 11, following an eight-year battle with cancer.
Van Lare retired from Gannett Co., Inc., an international news and information company where he was the Senior Vice President of Labor Relations, in 2010. For nearly 33 years, Van Lare had combined his legal expertise with a passion for newspapers. He was named Gannett’s Corporate Staffer of the year in 1990.
Van Lare enrolled at New Paltz to study education, but as a junior his focus turned to law. He completed his education major – even student teaching at Arlington Junior High School in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. – while participating on the student judiciary committee and co-founding a law society. After graduation and service as an officer in the U.S. Navy, Van Lare earned his Juris Doctor degree from Albany Law School of Union University.
Van Lare served New Paltz as a director of the SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board from 2004 to 2010. He regularly returned to campus, coordinating visits to Gannett-owned papers, such as the Poughkeepsie Journal, with cultural events at the college. Several years ago he began researching and writing the Van Lare Family history. As part of his efforts to tell the story of his fore bearers, he collected over 40 Dutch prints and etchings by Adrien Van Ostade, Cornelius Bega, Rembrandt Van Rijn and others. A selection of these will be donated to the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at New Paltz, as well as research volumes on the artists to the SUNY New Paltz Art History Department.
Following retirement Van Larel and his wife of 25 years, Karen, traveled extensively and enjoyed the good life – filled with numerous classical music concerts and operas. In addition to Karen, he also survived by his adult children, Jonathan and Allison; step-children, Andrew Giles and Lacey Roddick; and four grandchildren. His grandnephew, Michael Vanderbilt, a 2010 New Paltz graduate is currently a production manager at DreamWorks and was the inspiration for a generous donation to establish an endowed recruitment scholarship named for the Van Lare Family.
