BERNE — Russell Victor Gladieux was a natural leader who excelled at all he put his mind to. He died on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021, at the age of 81. 

Mr. Gladieux was born in Washington, D.C. on Valentine’s Day, 1940, to Bernard and Persis Gladieux, the second of four sons. Mr. Gladieux’s father worked for Booz Allen Hamilton as a government consultant, which required him to spend two years in the Philippines, starting in 1956, bringing his family with him. 

While attending school in the Philippines, Mr. Gladieux, a passionate athlete who specialized in the hurdle and broad jump, organized a track team and held the record for broad jump there. The family eventually came back to the United States, where Mr. Gladieux graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1959 and served as president of his class. 

It was at Middlebury College, in Vermont, that Mr. Gladieux met his future wife, Zenie, while he was studying economics. Mrs. Gladieux said their first encounter was at the Delta Kappa Epsilon house, where Mr. Gladieux, a member of the fraternity, was working on an amphibious Army vehicle he and his friends had acquired.

“A couple of his fraternity brothers had decided to drive an old surplus, amphibious Army vehicle down the [Pan-American] Highway … and they were working on it in the parking lot of the DKE house and a friend of mine wanted to go for a bike ride,” Mrs. Gladieux said. “She was dating a DKE, so we had to stop in and tell him where she was going. While she was talking with him, Russ came over to chat me up, and next thing I knew he was in my dorm asking if I’d like to go out.”

The two married on Jan. 12, 1963 and had their daughter, Nicole, that same year.

After he got his undergraduate degree, Mr. Gladieux served two years in the military before enrolling at New York University, where he got a master’s degree in urban planning. 

Mr. Gladieux would go on to a career in government, first working for the New York State Division of the Budget in its management program, and later helping the state reorganize the Department of Environmental Conservation, among other things.

After some early professional successes, Mr. Gladieux was made executive of a committee that was tasked with reorganizing the state lottery system in the mid-1970s, which had been suspended due to scandal.

“He set up the organization, he got new suppliers, and he recruited the first director of the new lottery,” Mrs. Gladieux said. “After he finished that project, they asked him to stay on as executive deputy director, and he did that for quite a few years.”

At home, Mr. Gladieux was a “strict but supportive” father, Nicole Gladieux said, recalling when she had just learned to drive and was warned that, if she wrecked a family car, she’d be “done driving.” The very day her license came in the mail, Ms. Gladieux went to pick up a friend and “proceeded to run the car off the road and totaled it,” she said. 

But that night, instead of chopping up her license, Mr. Gladieux let his daughter drive to the game in her mother’s car. “Some of my friends called me ‘Crash’ after that,” Ms. Gladieux said, “but I made it to the game. I drove there and cheered that night. So even though he could be really firm, he was kind.”

That was a sense shared by many of her friends, Ms. Gladieux said. “I have one friend who was afraid to drive and my dad put her on the tractor and made her drive around the field until she stopped being afraid. I have another friend who remembers my dad as like a second dad. Many of my best friends … remember him as a fatherly figure.”

When Ms. Gladieux got a bit older, she and her father got motorcycle licenses and would bike together, kicking off what would be a prominent phase.

“He went through two or three bikes, putting 100,000 miles on them,” Ms. Gladieux said. “He would just leave and go tour. He talked about being on the Northway and being chased by a bear on his motorcycle.”

Mr. Gladieux was fond of traveling, and did so quite extensively.

“We’ve hit all 50 states,” Mrs. Gladieux said. “We did all but three Canadian provinces. He’s covered just about every country in Europe except the Iberian Peninsula. Of course he lived in the Philippines, and he was in Japan, Hong Kong and Turkey.”

For their 50th wedding anniversary, the couple traveled to Australia and New Zealand and, on the way back, spent a week in the Philippines with their foster son, Frederick Byrd, and his family. 

Aside from globetrotting and motorcycles, Mr. Gladieux enjoyed skiing, the New York Times crossword, sports, and he followed politics closely. “He was fascinated with the whole political situation of the past few years,” Mrs. Gladieux said.  

He passed many of those interests on to his daughter.

“He taught me to ski, water ski, how to run, because he was in track himself,” Ms. Gladieux said. “He came to all my soccer games, took me to basketball. I played everything, and he was usually there … He was my buddy.”

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Russell Victor Gladieux is survived by his wife, Zenith Glaieux; his daughter, Nicole Gladieux, and Nicole’s husband, Daniel Richmond; his grandson, Cal Richmond-Gladieux; his step-granddaughter, Aja Richmond, and her husband, Ian Young; his great-grandchildren, Mackenzie and Gabriel; his sister-in-law, Avis Burnett; his brother Bernard Gladieux, and Bernard’s wife, Sally; his brother Jay Gladieux; and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A celebration of life will be held at a later date. 

Memorial contributions may be made to charity, or a random act of kindness may be performed in Mr. Gladieux’s memory. 

Memorial messages can be left at altamontenterprise.com/milestones

— Noah Zweifel