Stephen Philip Bayer

BAYER, Stephen Philip Stephen Philip Bayer died July 15, 2020 of complications from COPD. He is survived by his wife, Pamela Dozler; his children, Ellen Bashaw and her husband Brandon Bashaw, Max Bayer, Leo Bayer and his wife Miku Nishiyama, and Albert Bayer; his grandchildren, Lydia Bashaw and Emmett Bashaw; and his siblings Carolyn Bayer, Paul Bayer, and Margaret Bayer. He was preceded in death by his parents, Eleanor Marie Bily Bayer and Henry Palmer Bayer. Mr. Bayer was born in Chicago on June 27, 1950 and went on to attend Wesleyan University. In the early 1970's he moved to Austin and worked at the Stallion Restaurant and later was an announcer at Austin radio station KUT. He moved back to Chicago, working at Rose Records and then at the Hyatt in downtown Chicago. Mr. Bayer was then transferred to the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston, TX, where he met his wife. They returned to Austin in 1979. As a community leader, Mr. Bayer supported Capital Metro Transit Authority's mission to get people out of their cars and onto public transit and served on the Capital Metro Board of Directors between 1987 to 1990. As chairman, he increased ridership through systemwide free fares while reducing the sales tax collected by 0.25 cents per dollar. While working as a computer programmer of mapping software at Zycor, Inc, later Landmark Graphics Corp., he and his colleague, Steven Zoraster, earned the 1992 Commodore Cooper Medal for their paper "Automated Cartographic Sounding Selection" published in the International Hydrographic Review. Mr. Bayer was an avid reader, music lover, and quite the fan of classic movies, specifically from the 1930s pre-code Hollywood era. We will miss him, his encyclopedic knowledge, and his love of conversation.