Charles E. Scharlau • Retired Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer | Southwestern Energy Company
Charles Scharlau, who retired as CEO of Southwestern Energy in 1998 after 47 years with the company, died June 18 in Fayetteville; he was 94.
The funeral is scheduled for at 11 a.m. Friday at Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville with burial to follow at Fayetteville National Cemetery.
Scharlau, who was born in Chicago but grew up just outside of Mountain Home, earned a law degree from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1951 after enrolling on the GI Bill after serving in the Marines during World War II. UA law professor Robert Leflar recommended Scharlau for a job at Arkansas Western Gas Co., and Scharlau began as an attorney with the company that would become Southwestern Energy.
During Scharlau’s time at the company, it grew from a small natural gas distribution business in the Arkhoma Basin of Arkansas to what is now the third-largest natural gas producer in the country. Scharlau served in a variety of positions before becoming vice president, chairman and CEO.
He was a director for Southwestern Energy from 1966 until 2013. He was elected to the University of Arkansas Walton College of Business Hall of Fame in 2017.
Scharlau was an active and generous alumnus of the university. Scharlau was a member of the university’s board of trustees from 1997-2007 and served in leadership positions during two of its large fundraising initiatives.
He and his wife, Clydene, who died in 2012, endowed the Scharlau Endowed Chancellor’s Scholarship and the Scharlau Endowed Chair in Chemistry while also making donations to the university’s libraries.
In 2011, he donated $1 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to create the Charles & Clydene Scharlau Chair for Hematological Malignancies Research. Four years later, he donated again to create the Scharlau Family Endowed Chair in Cancer Research.
“He and his late wife, Clydene, were generous benefactors and dedicated countless hours of volunteer service to many causes at institutions and organizations across the UA System,” UA System President Donald Bobbitt said in a statement. “Charles was an outstanding and thoughtful chair and member of the Board of Trustees, and the UA System will continue to benefit from his legacy of service. We will truly miss his presence in our lives and the genuine kindness that he always displayed.
“Charles was known for many things – his business acumen, philanthropy and service to Arkansas. But his most important attribute to those close to him was his devotion to his family and many friends. I learned countless lessons from Charles over the years, the most important of which had nothing to do with my position as president. He was an individual I continue to try to emulate, though I frequently fall short.”
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