Samuel Shaw II; executive active in Brookline affairs

A quiet and thoughtful insurance executive in his professional life, he braved Boston traffic on his three-speed Raleigh, perching his briefcase in the bike's wire basket.

His habit of bicycling to work in all types of weather belied a pragmatic, prudent nature that made him a sought-after consultant worldwide.

"He must have been quite the picture coming down the street," said his son Christopher, of South Burlington, Vt. "He was secure in the fact that he was being frugal and practical. He enjoyed taking care of the pennies."

That frugal approach was one he applied as a Brookline Town Meeting member, often using as few words as possible to call for fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Shaw, who spent more than three decades as a John Hancock executive, died May 12 from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Carleton-Willard Village, a Bedford retirement community. He was 76.

"Sam was a gentleman in two senses," said Harvard classmate George Abrams. "He was extremely polite and considerate, and he was also extremely gentle. He was someone who was old-fashioned in the best sense of that word. He was both generous in spirit and generous in every way possible."

Born in Independence, Kan., he was raised in Longmeadow and graduated in 1950 from Classical High School in Springfield. While studying mathematics at Harvard College in the 1950s, Mr. Shaw was part of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and while serving in the Air Force just after his 1954 graduation, he worked on improving systems for tracking the reliability and life expectancy of aircraft engines and computation systems.

Numbers made Mr. Shaw light up. Long before personal finance software made its debut, Mr. Shaw would read the massive document the Internal Revenue Service puts out each year outlining all tax regulations.

A law degree from Boston College, which he received in 1965, helped him make sense of it all.

Early in his career, he was a consultant to Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in Washington, D.C., on employee benefits and Social Security. And at John Hancock, he was a vice president and actuary for group pensions and a "statistician's statistician," his son said. He managed a team of employees who were piecing together reports, and he caught their errors and made sure their results were up to snuff. He officially retired in 1988, but stayed on as a consultant for a few more years.

Mr. Shaw also took his consulting on the road, traveling to Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, and Russia as part of the International Executive Service Corps for what were often three-month stints, to offer advice and suggestions based on his decades of experience.

He lived for nearly a half-century in Brookline and did not shy away from the local political scene. In the 1970s, he was elected as a member of Town Meeting. He served on the town's Historical Commission and chaired a committee on town organization and structure. He also served as director of Brookline Savings Bank.

Relatives said Mr. Shaw was known for his brevity and for his penny-wise approach to the town's budget.

"He wanted to make sure property taxes were going to be used wisely," Christopher Shaw said.

His voice "was distinctive - a hearty voice, and you'd get a heartfelt smile from him. . . . When he spoke, people felt he spoke clearly and deliberately," his son added.

"He was a very old-school sort of person. He was very polite, very respectful of everybody, and he was very smart - particularly with numbers," Abrams said.

He stayed active in Harvard alumni affairs, working hard to keep dollars flowing into the university's endowment fund.

"Sam was very much a part of the fund-raising effort. He was quiet, and very thoughtful, and he had a wry sense of humor that everyone enjoyed," said E.V. Sweeney, director of reunion giving at Harvard.

In addition to his son Christopher, Mr. Shaw leaves his wife of 55 years, Dale (Dorman); another son, Samuel of Miami; a daughter, Elizabeth of Waltham; two granddaughters; and two grandsons.

A memorial service is being planned.