PHOTO: KEN RICHARDSON
His father and brother were alumni, as is his grandson. His late wife, Katherine Maclaurin Staples, was the granddaughter of Richard C. Maclaurin, president of MIT from 1908 until 1920. During Maclaurin’s notable presidency, the Institute moved from Boston to Cambridge, and Building 10 with its iconic Great Dome and adjacent buildings framing Killian Court were built.
“From the beginning, I loved MIT and got very involved,” says Staples. As a graduating senior, he was awarded the Karl Taylor Compton Prize for his achievements in student government, music, and athletics, and his post-graduation commitment earned him the Lobdell Award for Distinguished Service from the MIT Alumni Association in 1996.
Over the course of a career in business and management consulting, Staples was a cofounder, along with late MIT classmate Dick Sampson ’59, of American Alarm and Communications. He also served as CEO of Thornton Associates, founded by MIT professor Dick Thornton SM ’54, ScD ’57 to monitor the purity of water used in semiconductor manufacturing.
Staples aims to support MIT entrepreneurship education in the future through a charitable remainder trust. Meantime, he enjoys reading letters from recipients of the Elton E. Staples (1926) Scholarship and the Staples Family Scholarship that his family endowed at MIT.
Staples took part in a celebration of the legacy of his late wife’s grandfather, Richard Maclaurin, in spring 2016 at ceremonies marking the centennial of MIT’s move across the Charles.
“At President Rafael Reif’s invitation, I rounded up the Maclaurin family and 32 of us came over on the presidential boat from Boston to Cambridge,” Staples recalls. “It was fantastic. We loved it. Our relationship with MIT keeps growing.”
His wife, “Kadie” Maclaurin Staples, had looked forward to taking part in the celebration but, sadly, passed away just a few months before.
Katherine Maclaurin Staples was the granddaughter of Richard C. Maclaurin, president of MIT from 1908 until 1920.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHUCK STAPLES
Lives of energy and adventure
He and Kadie, a special education teacher, were married for 55 years and had three children and seven grandchildren. To say their lives together were active would be an understatement.
“I ran track and cross-country at MIT, and when I met Kadie, she was a mountain climber, skier, and a very good tennis player, so I adopted her sports,” Staples says.
Kadie Staples skied the precipitous Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington and also skied the Alps many times, according to a remembrance of her life published in 2016. She was nearly 70 when she went paraskiing off a mountain’s edge at Les Trois Vallées in France. She hiked and climbed mountains, as well, from the Grand Tetons to Mt. Fuji.
“Kadie and I climbed the Matterhorn together in 1964,” Staples recalls. After that, she gave up mountaineering, but he kept with it. “I climbed three of the top seven summits,” he says. “I climbed Kilimanjaro at age 56, and Aconcagua, in Argentina, which, at 22,000 feet, is one of the highest mountains outside the Himalayas, in 2001.
“In 2007, just shy of my 70th birthday, I climbed Mt. Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe,” he says. “According to my guide, I was the oldest person he knew of to do so.”
Staples ran the Boston Marathon in 2010 at age 72. He remains an avid tennis player, playing every Monday as he has for nearly 60 years.
Enduring ties to MIT
MIT continues to be an important part of his life. At his 50th Reunion in 2009, Staples joined Patrick McGovern Jr. ’59 in carrying the Class of 1959’s banner at the front of the procession at Commencement.
He credits MIT’s problem-solving mission for his continuing commitment.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the World Economic Forum that meets in Davos, Switzerland, every year,” he says. “An economist who has played a leading role there tells me that while most come to the conference to study the problems affecting the world, MIT comes to solve the problems, not just talk about them.
“In terms of making the world a better place, MIT makes more contributions than any other institution I know.”
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