Bruce A. Kaiser, businessman, active in politics
Updated: 05/08/07 6:56 AM
May 16, 1953 — May 6, 2007
Bruce Allen Kaiser of Grand Island, a businessman active in Grand Island politics, died unexpectedly Sunday in Noyes Memorial Hospital, Dansville, after becoming ill at his ski chalet in Swain. He was 53.
Born in Buffalo, he grew up in a long-established Grand Island family and was a graduate of Grand Island High School and Houghton College.
He inherited a love of sailing from his father and was a sailboat racer as a teen. After college, he did boating reports on WBEN radio and took a job in radio sales. He advanced to become sales manager for Rock 102.
In 1985, he and Edward McCarthy, a field engineer for ITT, founded Americom Communications, which installs and maintains telephone systems and computer systems for local businesses.
“I was the engineer putting it together,” Mc- Carthy said, “and he was the sales guy. He helped everybody. He didn’t mind doing it. He’d help anybody at all. That’s what made him a great sales guy. He was very honest, upfront, good guy.”
Active in the Republican and Conservative parties, he was a former chairman of the Grand Island Republican Committee. He ran unsuccessfully for the Grand Island Town Board in 1997 and 1999 and lost a bid in 2005 for the seat of retiring County Legislator Charles Swanick.
Owner of a 27-foot Ericson sailboat, he was a member and past commodore of the Niagara Sailing Club. He also enjoyed piloting his plane, a Piper Cherokee, and was a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
He also was a member of the Grand Island Lions Club and formerly was a director of the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, helping transfer it to a private conservancy. He was a vice moderator and former moderator at Whitehaven Road Baptist Church.
Surviving are his wife, the former Katharina Sausner; a stepson, Victor Capello; a stepdaughter, Kristina Carey; and a brother, Bryan.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in Whitehaven Road Baptist Church, 1290 Whitehaven Road, Grand Island.