Pearson H. Stewart, 90, of Carol Woods, Chapel Hill, died March 14. Mr. Stewart was the first vice president of the Research Triangle Foundation and the first executive director of the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission and its successor agency, the Triangle J Council of Governments.
A native of Boston, Mass., he was a history graduate of Amherst College and earned a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During World War II he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and received the Bronze Star for aerial photographic services on carriers in the Pacific Ocean.
After urban planning directorships in Knoxville, Tenn.; Passaic, N.J.; and Warwick, R.I., he spent most of his professional career in Chapel Hill and elsewhere in North Carolina.
He was a planning consultant for Fayetteville and Hickory, a research associate in the Institute for Research in Social Science at UNC-CH, the director of a special hurricane rehabilitation project for eastern North Carolina after the mid-1950s hurricanes, and a lecturer in the department of city and regional planning at UNC-CH. He was the third full-time staff member of the Research Triangle effort, joining the staff in 1958, where he was responsible for the physical form and character of the Research Triangle Park. He established the Triangle’s first regional planning agency, the RTRPC and TJCOG. From 1977 to 1983, he was assistant secretary for planning in the N.C. Department of Transportation. In 1983, he returned to the Research Triangle Foundation, where he remained until his retirement in 1990.
He was the second president of the Triangle Land Conservancy; was a named consultant to the N.C. Botanical Garden; served terms as chair of the Southeast and North Carolina Chapters of the American Planning Association; and was active on several Town of Chapel Hill, Orange County, State of North Carolina and TJCOG boards and committees.
In 1989, he was named volunteer of the year by the TJCOG. In 1990, the North Carolina chapter of the American Planning Association presented its Distinguished Service Award to him. In 1996 the Town of Chapel Hill named one of its Appearance Awards “The Jean and Pearson Stewart Award.â€
He was married to the former Jean Baker, who died in 2000. They had observed their 53rd wedding anniversary on Oct. 12, 1999.
After his wife’s death, he volunteered for several years on a regular basis as a counselor for a prisoner at the Orange Correctional Center, as a tutor in mathematics for a pupil at the Orange Literacy Council and as a visitor for many elderly friends at the Carolina Meadows and Carol Woods Health Centers.
Surviving are his son, Colin E. Stewart, and daughter-in-law, Susan Stewart, of Laguna Beach, Calif.; his daughter, Jean C. Stewart, of Marshfield, Mass.; three grandchildren and their spouses, Matthew and Natasha Stewart, Paul Stewart and Dr. Lara Davis and Rebecca and Dan Persson; two great-grandchildren, Abby and Juliet; and two brothers, David of Shirley, Mass. and Reed of Marshfield, Mass., and their families. His brother Oswald died in 2009.
A memorial service will be held in the Carol Woods Assembly Hall at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 20, 2010.
Memorials may be made to the Triangle Land Conservancy, to the N.C. Botanical Garden and to the Carol Woods Employee Appreciation Fund.