Brian T. Keim
Died August 26, 2010
Passionate about his rhododendron garden, Brian gradually converted more and more lawn to shrubbery beds as the collection grew to more than 600 rhododendrons, azaleas and conifers, with companion plants. His rhododendrons bloomed from early spring to late summer and ranged in size from one foot to more than fifteen feet tall. Brian and his wife, Cathy, were members of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, where Brian served several terms as president, and their garden was on the Society’s National Meeting Tour in the spring of 2004.
Brian was also actively involved in the affairs of the Lutheran Church, and the Meadowbrook School. He was also chairman of Liberty Lutheran Services, a social services agency of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Eastern Lutheran Church in America, which he was instrumental in leading for 30 years. Brian graduated in 1961 from Cheltenham High School, where his father was principal. After Yale, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1968 and moved to Washington, DC, where he clerked two years for Judge Theodore Tannenwald, Jr. on the U.S. Tax Court. Brian then joined the Philadelphia law firm of Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll in the tax department, until 1977 when he became inside counsel for a client, Barber Oil. After serving as Barber Oil’s senior vice president and general counsel in Manhattan, he returned to Ballard, Spahr in 1980, practicing corporate law and becoming the firm’s first financial partner in its domestic and international expansion and then head of the firm’s Business and Finance Group. Retiring from the firm in 1998, Brian served the next 11 years as vice president and general counsel for LWB Refractories in York, PA.
Brian passed away suddenly on August 26, 2010, survived by his wife of 44 years, Catharine Kammerer Keim, his children Laura, Todd and John, and his grandchildren, Maggie and Will Stutman and Jack and Carolyn Keim.