Jack William Wiley

"Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway." This John Wayne quote hangs on the wall of our dad's office, and on the afternoon of Sunday, November 2, 2025, our father, Jack Wiley, completed his final act of courage and faith as he passed from this life to the next. Born on May 24, 1952, in Huntington, Indiana, Jack was the second of four children. His parents, Max and Maxine, were both raised on farms, so Jack's childhood had a classic Americana feel-small towns, open fields, and plenty of Indiana basketball.
Jack was known for many things: his brilliant mind, which could recall the exact year, artist, and title of any oldies song, along with an encyclopedic knowledge of Indiana high school and college basketball stats; his lifelong love of the game itself; his deep love for his wife, Rhonda, to whom he was married for 51 years; and, above all, his steadfast faith in Jesus Christ. Growing up, Jack was a four-sport athlete-basketball, baseball, football, and track-and graduated from Wabash High School in 1970, where he served as class president. His best sport was basketball, which he continued to play as a forward at DePauw University, where he earned degrees in English and Psychology. Jack married his high school sweetheart, Rhonda, in 1974, the summer after graduation. Soon after, they moved from Indiana to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Jack earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Tennessee. Their years in Knoxville were formative-professionally and spiritually. It was there that Jack's faith deepened, and where their first son, Nathan, was born.
Jack's career took him next to Detroit, Michigan, where they welcomed another son, Luke, and then in 1981 to Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where the family would spend the next 26 years. Jack and Rhonda welcomed two more children, Megan and Jackson, and Jack built his company, Gantz Wiley Research (GWR), specializing in employee and customer satisfaction research. His work took him across the globe-to Europe, Dubai, China, and Australia-where he co-founded Gantz Wiley Asia Pacific in Melbourne. Of all his travels, he would say Australia was the most fascinating.
Outside of work, Jack was deeply involved in his community. He served as president of the Eden Prairie Boys Basketball Association, coached his children's basketball teams, and served as an elder at Northwest church of Christ. Not a musician himself, but a fan of music nonetheless, he amassed quite a collection of tapes and CDs. His family remembers countless road trips listening to a wide-range of music, but his favorites were Bob Seger and Vince Gill. In 2006, Jack sold his company to Kenexa, and a year later, he and Rhonda moved back to Indiana after more than two amazing decades in the Twin Cities. They became active members of the Woodland Hills church of Christ, where Jack served as an elder for 14 years. In 2013, he began teaching at Manchester University, helping establish an Industrial-Organizational concentration within the undergraduate Psychology program. Over his career, he published three books on leadership and employee engagement, including The Employee-Centric Manager in 2022, and continued consulting with Engage2Excel and later as CEO of Employee Centricity. Locally, he also served on the Honeywell Foundation board in Wabash.
In later years, Jack enjoyed new interests. He had always been an avid fisherman, but he also took up hunting-pheasant, deer, and antelope-and shared that love of the outdoors with family and friends. He and Rhonda enjoyed their beloved dogs-Gunnar, Greta, Ranger, and Scout-and many adventurous road trips on his Harley-Davidson with his sons. Family trips to Phoenix became a much-loved spring tradition, and in recent years, Jack found great joy as he forayed into horseback riding with the Desert Caballeros in Arizona, completing five trail rides between 2018 and 2023. True to his John Wayne spirit, he relished these western adventures and invited Rhonda out west with him whenever they could. His unique ability to survey a situation, see how it could be improved, while also kindly and diplomatically dealing with people of all sorts, made Jack an asset to any community of which he was a part.
Jack's greatest joy was his family-his wife, his four children, and his 15 grandchildren, who affectionately called him "Papa Jack." For their 50th wedding anniversary in 2024, the entire family gathered in Knoxville to celebrate with a University of Tennessee football game-a perfect and enjoyable way to acknowledge the place where their family began.
Jack's deepest hope was that his children would walk with the Lord, and he professed his own faith until the end. Though his life was shortened by the deleterious effects of cancer, it was a life lived fully and faithfully. Surrounded by his family, he fought a tremendous fight and finished his race, confident that his faith brought him to the Lord-and it is in that peace that he now rests.
He is survived by his wife, Rhonda Wiley of LaFontaine; four children, Nathan (Jenna) Wiley of Hanover, Minnesota, and their family, Ethan Wiley, Cora Wiley, Ava Wiley, Logan Wiley, Luke (Allison) Wiley of Lutz, Florida, and their family, McKaber Wiley, Ryker Wiley, Elle Wiley; Megan (Greg) Ciampa of Tampa, Florida, and their family, Mia Ciampa, Gabe Ciampa, Will Ciampa, Rowan Ciampa; and Jackson (Ashleigh) Wiley of Noblesville, Indiana, and their family, Jude Wiley, Jonathan Wiley, Timothy Wiley, Naomi Wiley; siblings, Janet (Jim) McSharar and Jerry (Melissa) Wiley, both of Indianapolis, Indiana; and his sister-in-law, Linda Wiley of Ponte Vedra, Florida. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Joseph Wiley.
Funeral services will be 10:30 am, Friday, November 7, 2025, at Grandstaff-Hentgen Funeral Service, 1241 Manchester Avenue, Wabash, with Wilson Copeland and Andy Cantrell officiating. Burial will be in LaFontaine Cemetery, LaFontaine, Indiana. Friends may call 4-7 pm Thursday, at the funeral home.
The preferred memorial is the Honeywell Foundation.
The memorial guest book for Jack may be signed at www.grandstaff-hentgen.com. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Jack William Wiley, please visit our floral store.