Deceased July 29, 2007
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In Memory
It is with the greatest sadness that I write with the news of the death of Chester Searle Currier, son of Amherst, Class of 1966 and member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. Chet died in hospice care in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 29, 2007, due to complications from prostate cancer. He is survived by his widow, Carol, and by his two children, Dana ’02 and Craig. He was 62 years old.
Chet was an English major at Amherst. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 1967 through 1970.
During a 29-year career at the Associated Press, he wrote stock market and investing stories that became fixtures in newspapers across the U.S. He was considered by his colleagues to be wise and calm under pressure, and he had a deep understanding of financial markets. He was widely respected for his handling of the 1987 market crash and was able to put this event into perspective for the ordinary investor. In the late 1990s, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
In 1999, he joined Bloomberg News, where he wrote a twice-weekly column on mutual funds and personal investing. He had a knack for taking contrarian positions and showing investors how conventional wisdom was often wrong.
He also enjoyed constructing crossword puzzles and created more than 1,000 puzzles for the AP over a 20-year period. A memorable financial theme to a puzzle Chet once wrote was “Have a NYSE day.”
Chet was the author of several books, including The Investor’s Encyclopedia, No Cost/Low Cost Investing, The 15-Minute Investor, Careers in the ’80s and Careers in the ’90s.
He will be missed by his colleagues and his Amherst classmates and fraternity brothers.
Robert P. Carson ’66