Dr. Charles Warden Jr

Dr. Charles Warden Jr.: ‘Retirement gig’ inspired careers for many others

Dr. Charles “Charlie” Warden Jr. served Wilbraham & Monson Academy honorably for eight years to cap off an amazing professional career and a wondrous life. Dr. Warden came to the Academy at age 80, after falling in love and marrying Cleo Warden, who was working at the WMA Middle School.

After meeting Mrs. Warden, he became intrigued with the Academy as a “retirement gig.” Boarding school life is busy, and Dr. Warden jumped in wholeheartedly teaching AP Macroeconomics, as well as Financial Markets within our Center for Entrepreneurship, Economics & Finance (formerly CEGS) Department.

Former Head of School Rodney LaBrecque said: “We were so lucky to hire Charlie at the inception of the CEGS program. His expertise and guidance were crucial to its success and laid the groundwork for a strong future experience for those students who are taking advantage of this program.”

Dr. Warden’s life experiences were nothing short of impressive. He served as an economic advisor in the U.S. government, was an accomplished professor and dean at the university level, and worked within private industry in the energy and data sectors among others. His professional experiences ranged from North Korea to West Africa and from the former Soviet Union to Europe and North America. Additionally, Dr. Warden had an impressive career working in Naval Intelligence in the Pacific. My personal favorite part of his seven-page resume was the final page that listed “Selected Unclassified Professional Publications.”

As a colleague, I appreciated his wit, wisdom and his natural contrarian nature. My most vivid memories of Dr. Warden are from within our WMA faculty meetings.

There are always a few topics in any meeting you know are going to potentially be sensitive. At times you hope for rich dialogue, and other times (if we’re being honest) you hope to just breeze through without a war breaking out. As I would broach a sensitive topic, it would often be met with silence to which I thought (yes! ... this one is not going to cause us a lot of worry) and just as soon as that thought had entered into my head, a slow, steady hand raised at the back of the crowd and Dr. Warden stood up (always standing when making a comment) to offer a contrarian point of view to what I had presented. It was done gently, professionally, but with the intention of pushing our thinking outside of what may be comfortable. It always produced subsequent comments and involved a larger section of the faculty. I appreciate his wisdom, his willingness to offer an alternative viewpoint and will greatly miss that slow, steady hand raising skyward.

Yet, Dr. Warden’s greatest impact was upon his students. Teaching Economics into his late 80s, he was always able to connect to young people and weave in his experiences to the ones his students were having in their own time.

“Dr. Warden lived an amazing life and inspired many to live their dreams and become successful. He was a great educator, teacher and human being. I am thankful that I was able to humbly learn from him. He will not be forgotten.”

—John tieRney ’15 Dr. Warden passed away on Feb. 7, 2021.

“Dr. Warden greatly influenced my life while I was at WMA and after I graduated. He taught me Intro to Market Economies, so he was the person that introduced economics to me ... and here I am now pursuing a Ph.D. in economics. In fact, when I revisited the Academy in Fall 2018 for Alumni Weekend, I had a brief chat with him where I shared that I wasn’t sure about doing a Ph.D. He offered very kind words of encouragement and support. It’s safe to say that I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.” —MaRK xu ’16 “A true teacher.”

“I am deeply sorry to hear this. AP Macro with Dr. Warden led me to study economics

—liaM etti ’20

“Dr. Warden was the epitome of a perfect teacher who encouraged many students to love learning and pursue a career in economics.

Thank you.” —saMuel ZablotniJ ’19

“Dr. Warden was such a kind and gentle spirit. I feel very fortunate to have taken his classes and learned from him. He will be deeply missed by the entire WMA “It was an absolute pleasure to have him as one of my faculty leaders on formal Thursday lunches. I still remember the great wisdom he passed down during our conversations at these lunches.”

at NYU.” —henRy seo ’13 community.” —VeRonica beRnaRdo ’15 —Matt nauMec ’15