Max Wyman Dies; Leaves Many Who Benefited From His Concern

The 136-foot yacht Wild Goose II sent out a mayday in August 1963. It had struck a submerged object 220 miles south of Honolulu and was sinking.

Among the 17 people rescued by the Coast Guard were a 4-year-old Maori girl being rushed from her Pacific atoll home to the U.S. for heart surgery and Max Wyman, the owner of the Wild Goose and a Seattle businessman whose life was full of such adventure and such good deeds.

The little girl, Cecilia MacCauley, died a few months later after surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Wyman died Thursday of cancer. He was 74.

Wyman, whose father founded the Max A. Wyman Lumber Co., graduated from the University of Washington School of Forestry. He was active in the lumber business and various other ventures until his retirement 15 years ago.

He owned Biles-Coleman Lumber Co., an Eastern Washington firm, selling it to Crown-Zellerbach in 1972. At the time of his death, he was a major stockholder in the Kinzua Corp., an Oregon lumber company.

In 1965, Wyman became a member of the New York Stock Exchange as chairman of Herron Northwest, a securities firm that was sold in the 1960s to Piper Jaffray and Hopwood. A chapter of a recent book on Seattle's investment community, ``Taking Stock,'' is devoted to Wyman.

In the mid 1960s, Wyman was a director of Pacific Airlines, which merged with two other regional airlines to become Airwest. Airwest eventually was bought by Howard Hughes. An amateur pilot throughout his adult years, Wyman flew his own jet to the Paris Air Show in 1988.

Wyman's son David remembers his father as ``an explorer and an adventurer. He loved to do the unusual and the adventuresome.''

Wyman had taken several months off to cruise the Pacific on the Wild Goose with his family. During the trip, on Penrhyn Island, an atoll with about 700 residents, Wyman met the adoptive parents of Cecilia MacCauley, who was suffering from a congenital heart defect. Wyman flew back to Seattle from Tahiti and made arrangements to bring Cecilia and her mother to the United States for the operation. The operation was performed in October, but Cecilia died about three weeks later.

In 1962 Wyman sold the Wild Goose, a converted minesweeper, to actor John Wayne. Wayne continued to moor the boat in the Northwest.

In his later years, Wyman spent summers in Alaska and winters in California on another family yacht, the Silverado.

Little Cecilia MacCauley was not the only child to benefit from Wyman's generosity. In 1947, he and his late father and brother established the Wyman Youth Trust, a family foundation that gives about $250,000 a year to Seattle charities, usually those dealing with children. He also has helped numerous students attend the University of Washington and Seattle University, according to David Wyman.

Wyman was a member of the Seattle Yacht Club, the Men's University Club and the Seattle Tennis Club. An avid bird hunter, he spent many fall weekends hunting ducks at the Venice Island Duck Club in California.

Wyman is survived by his wife Gail; sons David of Bellevue and Hal of Seattle; six grandchildren; a sister-in-law, Helen Wyman of Seattle; three nieces and one nephew.

There will be a family memorial service tomorrow.

Those who wish may make contributions in his name to the Swedish Hospital Cancer Research Fund or Wyman Youth Trust, 304 Pioneer Bldg., 600 First Ave., Seattle, 98104.