Earle M. Chiles
Doctor of Humane Letters
Earle M. Chiles was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, but he has strong roots in New England as well as Oregon. His mother, Virginia Hughes Chiles, was born in Boston and graduated from Boston University. His father came east to attend graduate school, and here he met and married Virginia. Upon returning to Oregon, he went to work in the family retail business, begun by his stepfather selling coffee, tea, and spices out of a horse-drawn carriage in Portland and throughout the surrounding lumber camps.
Mr. Chiles is a graduate of Menlo College in Atherton, California, and Stanford University. He is president of Earle Chiles and Affiliated Companies, a property investment, management, and development firm based in Portland with holdings throughout Oregon and in other parts of the country, and he is president of The Chiles Foundation. His father spent his entire career with the family business, Fred Meyer, Inc., which had grown from one carriage to a major chain of retail outlets, and Mr. Chiles served as a director of the company. His father began The Chiles Foundation in 1949, and the younger Chiles served as executive director from 1968 until 1983, when he became president.
Through his efforts and the legacy of philanthropy begun by his grandfather and shared by his parents, the Chiles name has become recognized in the higher education and medical communities for the Foundation's broad efforts to support building projects, research, and scholarships. A gift to underwrite the Virginia Hughes Chiles Atrium in Boston University's School of Management is just one example of Mr. Chiles's commitment to his mother's hometown. The Boston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard University also have benefited through support from The Chiles Foundation, as have Stanford, Portland State, and a host of other institutions. He is a recipient of the German-American Friendship Award and of numerous honors from educational and health-related institutions.
He was elected a Trustee of Boston University in 1986 and served on the Board until 2007, when he was named Trustee Emeritus and today serves on the University's Board of Overseers.
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