Top Fidelity Executive Dies In Kayaking Accident

A top executive at Fidelity Investments, Boyce Greer, has died in a whitewater kayaking accident. An avid and experienced kayaker, Greer died Sunday on the North Fork of the Payette River in Idaho.

Fidelity spokesman Vincent Loporchio said Greer will be greatly missed.

Greer managed hundreds of billions of dollars as the head of Institutional Investments, Asset Management and vice chairman of Pyramis Global Advisors. A 25-year Fidelity employee, he worked his way from managing equity portfolios to eventually running the money market and fixed income funds for Fidelity.

Greer died Sunday kayaking a turbulent, tricky section of the Payette River. The scenic mountain waterway is a kayaking mecca for its chain of challenging rapids.

Greer loved kayaking and was known in the sport as one of its ambassadors, prominently supporting American Whitewater, a group that advocates preserving and protecting the country’s wild rivers.

He was also a leading investor and owner of Legacy Paddlesports, a maker of kayaking gear.

Greer graduated from Harvard College in 1978. He later earned a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. At Fidelity, junior employees were fond of Greer as an executive who would make fun of himself and could relate to anyone.

“[Greer] was an admired and greatly respected manager, colleague and friend, who brought his extraordinary passion, caring nature, keen intellect and wonderful sense of humor to everything he did,” said Loporchio.