Keith Collier

1977 - 2024

Keith Ronald Collier, 47, passed away on Dec. 18, 2024, just a few months short of his planned early retirement after a successful fifteen-year career in financial services and investment management.

Keith's sudden and unexpected battle with brain cancer was a journey that he described as a long, heartbreaking goodbye to the world he loved and appreciated so much. Unfortunately, the fate of those final days was incongruent with his lifetime of kindness, helpfulness and personal passion for improving the world.

Keith held a notable appreciation for the iconic classics that defined humanity's culture and history of progress in pursuit of continuous improvement and refinement of timeless art, style, fashion, architecture and interior design that shaped his personality and approach to the world. Led by ambition, intellectual curiosity, a track record of success and undaunted by setbacks or limitations, Keith always thought and imagined on a grand scale while striving to craft the most elegant, complete and direct solution to any problem or challenge.

Keith was a man of many impressive, small and hidden worlds who brought unforgettable value and kindness into the lives of those who got to know his humble, gracious, and affable personality.

Keith dedicated the prime of his life to innovation, self-improvement, creativity and education. Complementing his quick memory and love of good conversation and good espresso, he was insatiable and curious to research the back stories of the creative works and inventions he admired and the biographies of the people who created them. In the late months of his life, Keith established The Collier Institute for Intellectual Inquiry and Innovation, a thought leadership network to curate the world's latest innovative ideas and innovations into an annual research journal partnership.

Keith was born on March 10, 1977, in the rural village of Danville, Pennsylvania. In his early life, Keith graduated from Meyers High School in Wilkes-Barre as class valedictorian and served as junior class president. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in architectural engineering from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and was a member of the Schreyer Honors College. He earned a master's in business administration from Cornell University, launching his primary investment management career. Keith attained the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and contributed many innovations to quantitative investment research. His adaptable and varied interests led to a uniquely diversified career path spanning technical sales at General Electric, real estate development at Toll Brothers, Inc., and, most recently, Director of Asset Allocation Research at Bank of New York Mellon in New York City and Boston.

Some of Keith's favorite interests and aesthetics included classic films of the 1940s and 50s, jazz standards of the Great American Songbook, and the history of science, technology, and land & sea exploration. His various roles in research and his uncanny memory and recall abilities highlighted his devotion to curation and keeping notes of places, artwork, processes, products, and anecdotes that would highlight our time's most significant, exemplary, and highest-quality creations.

Keith was a faithful Roman Catholic, a passionate patron of the visual and performing arts and a frequent attendee of theaters, museums and fundraising galas.

As a devout introvert, Keith treasured his quiet time to luxuriate in stillness to open his creative powers of innovation and invention as a productive form of daily meditative peace. He would encourage others to do the same to discover their life's purpose. His daily latte ritual served as additional fuel for his innovation efforts.

Keith treasured his expansive network of personal friends and business associates. He enjoyed cultivating existing and new friendships and connecting people across his network at the seasonal cocktail parties he often hosted in Boston and New York City.

He had an unwavering passion for Art Deco architectural design, reflecting his shared spirit of futurism, optimism, monumentality, and achievement.

His parents, Ron and Roberta Collier of Wilkes-Barre; his brother, Jason; niece, Ulrika, and sister-in-law, Heidi, of Apex, NC; and other family and friends will miss him very much.

Celebration of Keith's Life begins Friday, Dec. 27, 2024, with visitation from 4 to 9 p.m. at McLaughlin's, 142 South Washington St. in Wilkes-Barre. It continues there on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024, with gathering at 9 a.m. followed by a Funeral Mass at 10 a.m. in the Church of Saint Nicholas.

Donations can be made to The Collier Institute for Intellectual Inquiry and Innovation, in care of The Luzerne Foundation. 34 South River Street, Wilkes-Barre at https://luzfdn.org/types-of-funds/collier-institute-for-intellectual-inquiry-and-innovation-fund, are preferred and will honor Keith's memory.

Share memories and condolences with Keith's family at mjmclaughlin.com.