Rex D. Adams

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow former member of the corporation Rex Adams on September 1, 2024.  Rex died peacefully at home in Fearrington Village, NC. The cause of death was complications of Parkinson’s Disease. He was 84.

A Trustee Emeritus of Duke University and Dean Emeritus of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke, Rex also served as chairman of the board of both Invesco and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), after a 31-year career at Mobil Corporation. Rex was a respected and admired figure in many people’s lives, and a revered and deeply loved husband, father, and grandfather.

Born in a coal mining camp in West Virginia on March 9, 1940, at the age of nine Rex lost his father, a coal miner and deputy sheriff. His mother, the first in her family to graduate from high school, became a bookkeeper at the local cemetery in order to support him and his sister. Rex spoke often of how hard he worked at school and athletics in order to have a chance to experience the world beyond Oak Hill, WV. That grit and determination led to many college recruiting offers to play football. He chose Duke.

Rex fully engaged with the academic and other opportunities Duke afforded him, played on a winning Cotton Bowl team, and met Ellen Cates, who would become his wife of 61 years.

In 1962, Rex received a Rhodes Scholarship and spent three years at Merton College, Oxford University, studying history. He wrote to Ellen and asked her to join him there to share in that transformative experience. They were married in a 12th-century Norman church in Oxford in 1963.

In 1965, Rex joined Mobil Oil. Roles in international operations took him and his growing family in and out of London to Istanbul, Hamburg, and Tripoli, Libya before they moved to Rye, New York and later to Northern Virginia. Rising quickly through the ranks at Mobil, he eventually served as Executive Vice President for Administration from 1988 until 1996.

While at Mobil, Rex became actively involved at Duke, serving as a trustee of the university and on the Board of Visitors of the business school. In 1996, Rex left Mobil and returned to Duke as Dean of the Fuqua School of Business. Beloved by students as a professor and a dean, he greatly increased the annual fund, raised the school’s ranking, built a student center, improved student diversity, and developed new programs.

After stepping down as dean at Fuqua, Rex joined the board of investment management company Invesco, becoming the chairman in 2006. Rex also took on the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of PBS in 2001. In addition to Duke, Invesco, and PBS, Rex served on the boards of a number of other nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and companies throughout his career.

Although Rex and Ellen moved their primary residence frequently, they also found a home in Woods Hole, MA, where Rex joined the WHOI board from 1997-2023. Rex played a little golf and frequented the local library book sales. This became and remains the extended family’s true home, where they have celebrated weddings and holidays and welcomed visits from friends.

Rex enjoyed Duke basketball and football games, rooting for the New York Giants, New York City and its restaurants and theaters, cabernet sauvignon, music (especially Emmylou Harris), reading widely, and collecting books. He was happy to spend more time with his family, especially his grandchildren who knew him as “Dean,” the family dogs, and old friends, during his later years.

Throughout his life, Rex dedicated time daily to thinking and reading deeply and seriously about the world. He was intense and driven, but he was also a storyteller with a huge roaring laugh. He kept his sense of humor to the end.

Rex is survived by his wife, Ellen Cates Adams; his three children, Laura Adams, Nick Adams, and Sarah Delehanty; his son-in-law Patrick Delehanty; and his six grandchildren, Annie, Lilly, Courtney and Riley Delehanty, and Natasha and Zachary Partnoy. His sister, Kay Adams Simmons, predeceased him.

Donations in Rex’s honor can be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Rex Adams Scholarship Fund at the Fuqua School of Business.

Information for this obituary is from Ends Well Funeral Home