Necrology

Albert “Trey” Bayard Wright III '68

Mar. 18, 1946-Mar. 22, 2021

Albert “Trey” Bayard Wright III ’68 died in Boston on April 22, 2021. Born on March 18, 1946, in Lockport, N.Y., he came to Hamilton from Lockport Senior High School. On the Hill he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, majored in economics, and played football his freshman year. On Dec. 17, 1966, in a bar in the basement of the American Legion Hall in Lockport, Trey met Maura McDonough. They were married in their hometown on Feb. 3, 1968, and had a daughter and two sons.

Trey encountered academic difficulties during his senior fall semester and withdrew from the College. After marrying Maura, he worked at Neisner’s five-and-dime discount store in Lockport and transferred to an Avon store a few months later. Encouraged by Maura, he re-enrolled at Hamilton in fall 1969, essentially to complete his senior year. Without the benefit of financial aid and to make ends meet, the couple worked in a local bakery and lived in an apartment above it until the ceiling fell in. They moved to a vacant faculty apartment near campus, and Trey graduated in June 1970 with a much improved academic record; he retained his affiliation with the Class of 1968.

After Trey’s graduation, the Wright family returned to Lockport and he began graduate studies in business at the State University of New York at Buffalo (now the University of Buffalo), earning a master of business administration in 1972. In the spring, he noticed a job posting for Welch Foods of Westfield, N.Y., which is owned by the National Grape Cooperative Association. Following a successful interview, he began his career at Welch’s as a financial management trainee. Although he was hired at a time when the company was having difficulty filling positions, when he presented himself at corporate headquarters, they had forgotten that they had hired him. Appropriate adjustments were made, and he went to work.

Following his trainee time, he became the plant account manager in Westfield, before being transferred in 1974 to the company’s operation in Lawton, Mich. Two years later, he returned to corporate headquarters. In 1983, Welch’s moved its headquarters to Massachusetts. Since concord was the variety of grape that Welch’s used in its juice and jelly, it seemed only natural that their new home would be the Boston suburb of Concord. Trey, Maura, and their three children made their home in nearby Harvard, Mass. Trey was appointed vice president for corporate planning and, in 2001, was promoted to senior vice president for finance and chief financial officer. He retired at the end of 2007.

Concurrently, the Wright’s children came of age. Their daughter moved to Rockland, Maine, and became a public school STEM teacher in Damariscotta. Their son Andrew established a private law practice in Brunswick, Maine. Steven became a partner in a Boston law firm. Trey and Maura decided to find a summer home on the Maine coast and settled on Port Clyde, a lovely fishing village, in 2001. By 2003, they sold their Harvard house and split time between city life in the South End of Boston and country life in Maine.

In Port Clyde, Trey immersed himself in his hobby of collecting and maintaining a small number of old automobiles, an interest that dated back to his youth when his father drove a 1937 Plymouth and co-invested with Trey and a high school buddy to purchase a 1946 Lincoln that had to be towed from Buffalo to Lockport in order to be renovated. While on the Hill, Trey acquired at auction a Packard hearse, which he memorably repaired in the Alpha Delt parking area. In Maine, his vehicle of choice was a 1941 Packard Roadster. He also helped his sons build soapbox derby cars and later built dollhouses for his granddaughters.

Trey was described in his public obituary as “thoughtful, fair, kind, and witty.” One business colleague recalled an example of his wit. At a meeting of Welch’s senior officers in Concord, the CEO proposed acquiring the Trappist brand of jellies. He was unaware that the brand was, in fact, produced by actual Trappist monks at St. Joseph’s Abbey located in Spencer, Mass., near Worcester. Trey’s response, which convulsed some in the room and left others bewildered, was: “We might have a problem with their management.”

In 2010, Trey was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, for which there is no approved treatment. A few years after retirement, Trey started to experience symptoms, and he and Maura moved to Boston to be close to Massachusetts General Hospital and his care team. Trey refused to go down without a fight, and in the course of 12 years he participated in numerous research studies that he hoped would be proactive in finding an eventual cure for the disease. Despite the gravity of his diagnosis, Trey maintained his humor and his love of family until the end.

Albert B. Wright III is survived by his wife, three children, eight granddaughters, two grandsons, and one great-granddaughter.

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