Richard Metrick, ex-Bear Stearns executive, dies at 69

Richard Metrick, whose financial career included nearly two decades at Bear Stearns, where he worked on that firm's fire sale to J.P. Morgan Chase, has died of esophageal cancer. He was 69.

On Sunday, Cheryl Metrick remembered her husband, who died Tuesday at the couple's Lloyd Harbor home, as a "brilliant" man who devoured history books and idolized Abraham Lincoln, but also as someone devoted to his family and charitable causes.

"Somebody labeled him a workaholic, but that wasn't really what he was," she said. "His family always came first."

Metrick was born on June 2, 1941, in New York City. He attended Brooklyn Polytechnic University, and worked as an electrical engineer at Wheeler Laboratories in Great Neck, Cheryl Metrick said. He became a lawyer after taking night classes at Brooklyn Law School while working full-time, she said.

After Wheeler was purchased by the Greenlawn-based Hazeltine Corp., Richard Metrick headed up that firm's law department, eventually becoming an executive there.

Metrick also served as chief financial officer for American Bakeries, where he negotiated that firm's buyout in 1986.

Three years later, Metrick joined Bear Stearns, where he stayed for nearly 20 years. He was serving as the "right-hand man" to chief executive officer Alan Schwartz when the firm was sold to J.P. Morgan Chase in 2008. J.P. Morgan Chase bought Bear Stearns with the help of a loan from the federal government after financial rumors about the solvency of Bear Stearns and the subsequent refusal of lenders to deal with the firm led to its collapse.

Schwartz said he relied on Metrick's skills and knowledge during that buyout. "He was clearly one of the most brilliant people I ever met, with an incredibly wide-ranging intellect," Schwartz said.

Schwartz and Metrick went on to work together at Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, where Metrick again served as Schwartz's key adviser. He stopped working only a month ago, when he became too ill, Cheryl Metrick said.

Richard Metrick enjoyed fine wines and vacations to Positano, Italy, where each year the couple would "stay in the same room of the same hotel and go to the same restaurants and eat the same dishes mostly," Cheryl Metrick remembered. "We knew what we loved and enjoyed every minute of it."

In addition to his wife, Metrick is survived by sons Andrew Metrick of New Haven, Conn., and Marc Metrick of Manhattan; daughter Sara Gewirtz of San Ramon, Calif., brothers Neil Metrick of Saxtons River, Vt., and Allan Metrick of New Rochelle; nieces Kym Dawson of Mt. Sinai and Kristen Dean of St. James; nephew Kory Happ of East Setauket; and former wife Barbara Ross of Dix Hills.

A small family service was held last week, but a larger memorial service is planned for September.