PORT LUDLOW — Myron Vogt, the inspiration behind the Boeing Bluebills and their volunteer efforts to keep seniors in their homes, has died after a long battle with cancer.
The former Peninsula Daily News Heart of Service award winner and Chamber of Jefferson County Citizen of the Year died Jan. 12. He was 85.
He is survived by Valeria, his wife of 56 years; his daughter, Jennifer Molloy of Issaquah; his sons, David Vogt of Atlanta and Joe Vogt of Vancouver, B.C.; and six grandchildren.
Vogt, who retired from Boeing after 34 years, was part of the original 17 members of the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Bluebills who are still active today.
That chapter, formed in 1998, has expanded its membership to 198 and merged with the Peninsula Support Organization, a nonprofit that works to support both students and families on the Peninsula.
“He was so influential to me,” said Barbara Berthiaume, the PSO Bluebills’ board secretary.
“My husband was the main Bluebill, but for some reason, Myron picked me to mediate a whole agency-wide (effort).”
The Bluebills work with schools, churches, other nonprofits and groups such as World Vision and the Seattle-based Museum of Flight to provide food, supplies, fall prevention for the elderly and K-12 education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap counties.
“We need to hear from the agencies, what they’re doing, and what we can do to help,” Berthiaume said. “He asked me if I’d do it. He just had such a knack for finding people and wanting them to work and think it’s fun and think it’s meaningful.”
Vogt led a group within the Bluebills called The Builders, who have installed more than 1,220 wheelchair ramps, 1,400 miscellaneous repairs and modifications and assisted more than 5,000 people with rails, grab bars, transfer poles and redesigned user-friendly steps.
Robert Chanpong has taken on that leadership role, although Vogt never asked him to do it.
“He just talked to me one day very quietly,” Chanpong said. “He told me he was leaving and he just said, ‘Who do you think should do the job?’
“It didn’t take me long, maybe a few seconds, and I said, ‘OK, Myron, I’ll do it.’”
Several Bluebills members said Vogt had a unique way of bringing people together for a common goal.
“Myron just had a way with everybody,” said Ed Berthiaume, Barbara’s husband. “When he wanted to do something, he could get it done and make everybody happy. He was a good guy and a lot of fun.”
Ed Berthiaume, like Vogt, was a Boeing executive. At one time, Vogt was a regional director in Tokyo and Berthiaume performed the same job in London.
“Myron was very smart man,” Ed said. “He could put a design together and sell it to a county or whatever.
“He was just very good with everybody. He had a way about him.”
Chanpong met Vogt at the Port Ludlow Golf Course and joined the Bluebills after “several dozen rounds with him,” he said.
“Myron really likes to figure out who you are in the good sense,” Chanpong said. “He likes to know what you’re capable of doing in a good way. He was never judgmental, but whenever we went out on a job together, Myron was always the kind of boss where he allowed you to fit into the group in whatever capacity you could, whether it’s using a hammer, using a saw, digging a post hole.
“He said, ‘Here’s the plan. This is what we’re going to do, so let’s do it.’”
Chanpong said Vogt had a “magical” effect on him.
“He’s interested in creating relationships where he wanted to help whatever he could with whomever he could,” Chanpong said. “It’s a generosity of spirit and heart that really affected me over time.
“I couldn’t believe this man who was golfing with me would eventually reawaken a spirit that was sort of dormant because of the sort of job I had,” he said.
Jay Gilmour, who also worked for Boeing before he retired in 1993, said Vogt started the Peninsula Bluebills chapter with a $5,000 check from Boeing. Now the organization helps to provide nearly $450,000 in cash, goods and services annually, Barbara Berthiaume reported.
“Myron was a conundrum in some ways because he wasn’t very organized, but anything he asked someone to do, they wanted to do it,” Gilmour said. “He had an undeniable ability to identify who was willing to do something, ask them to do it, and got it done.”
Gilmour added that Vogt’s wife, Valeria, was an integral part of everything he did.
“They were a team in many respects,” Gilmour said. “She had the ideas of what should be done, and he found a way to get it done.”
After he died, Chanpong said there was a procession in front of his house and drivers honked their horns to say goodbye.
The Bluebills plan to honor Vogt with an annual award to one of its members in his name for the volunteer of the year.
“He was a great man leaving a great legacy,” Chanpong said. “We will continue to do the work that he started.
“We serve the people who need it the most. We make no judgements of the people who need the help. That’s what the Bluebills are all about.”
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Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached by email at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
