AFE — May/June 2012
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The Builder Of Empires Is Called Back To Nature Remembering Sigi Brauer
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay…without knowing why. To big Al Einstein, it was enough…to wonder at the secrets. Several times each year, I would receive a phone call that would light up my day. He was the only icon I knew, and he was calling me. Mr. Wayne…this is Sigi, he would say, in that strong, firm German accent. Siegfried H. Brauer was his name, Sigi to all, and one of the four founders of the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company — but this day was different.
This call was not from Sigi. It was Tuesday, September 4, 2001, just a few days before 9/11, and it was a close friend telephoning me about Sigi. I was told Sigi was gone. His life taken in a car accident the previous Saturday, on a road in New Hampshire near Lake Shore Park. I stared at the ceiling until I realized there was, in fact, someone on the phone. Wait a minute — Sigi was still working on the Turner Hill project, and there was the major air-conditioning issue confronting Trinity Place as a result of the impending closure of the North Winds Energy Plant. What about the trip to Miraval? He was the monarch building another empire! My mind was racing for an explanation. I don’t understand how Nature could have reclaimed the builder of empires. His work was so unfinished and incomplete. The voice continued: Wayne, I am told it was instant…he knew nothing of what had happened. This was to comfort me; the fact that Sigi’s celestial soul, as 16th-century Descartes would say, was spared pain. Within an instant and as unpredictable as quantum mechanics, his body had been turned off and separated from a spirit known by many. There was not a thing I could do about it. I was in unfamiliar territory. Instead of interpreting his engineering, I was selfishly trying to interpret the loss of a person larger than life and beyond a friend. Later, in a hollow sense, I had to attempt to interpret his loss to an entire industry.
If it were Sigi calling I could fix it, no matter what he threw at me, no matter the impossibility his problem or vision entailed; it was Sigi asking, my friend that I knew would only call me aft er everyone else was called. He always knew what to say to get the most of your talent. As regret would have it, it was someone else on the phone speaking about Sigi. For the first time I could not find an answer to Sigi’s problem — his passing.
It was not until I was near Sigi’s shared beach house at his funeral on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire that it hit me. Sigi once wagered he would give me something I would not have a clue how to fix. Sigi — as usual — was right. I remember he once advised me during a time when I had been saddened by a series of events to empty your mind, Mr. Wayne, and think of a fond memory. I don’t think the world’s grand hotelier knew he would end up as my fond memory.
Wayne P. Saya, Sr., CPE
Chair, AFE National Board of Directors
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay…without knowing why. To big Al Einstein, it was enough…to wonder at the secrets. Several times each year, I would receive a phone call that would light up my day. He was the only icon I knew, and he was calling me. Mr. Wayne…this is Sigi, he would say, in that strong, firm German accent. Siegfried H. Brauer was his name, Sigi to all, and one of the four founders of the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company — but this day was different.
This call was not from Sigi. It was Tuesday, September 4, 2001, just a few days before 9/11, and it was a close friend telephoning me about Sigi. I was told Sigi was gone. His life taken in a car accident the previous Saturday, on a road in New Hampshire near Lake Shore Park. I stared at the ceiling until I realized there was, in fact, someone on the phone. Wait a minute — Sigi was still working on the Turner Hill project, and there was the major air-conditioning issue confronting Trinity Place as a result of the impending closure of the North Winds Energy Plant. What about the trip to Miraval? He was the monarch building another empire! My mind was racing for an explanation. I don’t understand how Nature could have reclaimed the builder of empires. His work was so unfinished and incomplete. The voice continued: Wayne, I am told it was instant…he knew nothing of what had happened. This was to comfort me; the fact that Sigi’s celestial soul, as 16th-century Descartes would say, was spared pain. Within an instant and as unpredictable as quantum mechanics, his body had been turned off and separated from a spirit known by many. There was not a thing I could do about it. I was in unfamiliar territory. Instead of interpreting his engineering, I was selfishly trying to interpret the loss of a person larger than life and beyond a friend. Later, in a hollow sense, I had to attempt to interpret his loss to an entire industry.
If it were Sigi calling I could fix it, no matter what he threw at me, no matter the impossibility his problem or vision entailed; it was Sigi asking, my friend that I knew would only call me aft er everyone else was called. He always knew what to say to get the most of your talent. As regret would have it, it was someone else on the phone speaking about Sigi. For the first time I could not find an answer to Sigi’s problem — his passing.
It was not until I was near Sigi’s shared beach house at his funeral on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire that it hit me. Sigi once wagered he would give me something I would not have a clue how to fix. Sigi — as usual — was right. I remember he once advised me during a time when I had been saddened by a series of events to empty your mind, Mr. Wayne, and think of a fond memory. I don’t think the world’s grand hotelier knew he would end up as my fond memory.
Wayne P. Saya, Sr., CPE
Chair, AFE National Board of Directors
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