Brian Carl Goncher
June 15, 1956-May 30, 2026
Palo Alto, California
Brian Goncher loved. He loved throwing parties, especially if he could plan a menu and cook for you. He loved gardening, transforming his Palo Alto home into a green oasis with a swinging hammock, hot tub, and citrus trees. He loved cycling and swimming, and, later in life, scuba diving. He loved mentoring, history, math, cooking, traveling, and nature. And he loved loved loved his friends and his beautiful family.
Brian grew up in the Cleveland area with his parents Doris and James (Jim), the second in a row of four boys (first Gary, then Brian, Dale, and Kurt). Brian was an unabashed intellect. He once said he “read a book a week for much of my life.”
Brian’s fascination with learning didn’t go unnoticed by his parents. According to Brian, the most expensive (and treasured) gift he ever got from them was a full set of Encyclopedia Britannicas, which they bought from door-to-door salesman. The series was published by the University of Chicago, a fact not lost on young Brian. “That’s why I eventually went there,” he noted. “I thought that anyone who wrote that collection had to be smart.”
In high school in the ’70s, Brian was the captain of a team that competed on a local TV show called It’s Academic. “We were all geeks. But we won. You know what the prize was? It was a terrible, terrible set of encyclopedias.”
But Brian’s curiosity went far beyond reading about things. He made them, too. He had a fearless focus and belief that anything was possible, including building his own full-size hang glider at age 14. At age 16, he built a second hang glider using aircraft aluminum, with an elegant sail. “I flew it everywhere,” recalled Brian. “I flew off the sand dunes at a national park in Michigan. I loved the design. I had built something beautiful.”
Even in his teens, Brian was never content with the conventional and always embracing the moment. He was a political activist in 10th grade, stuffing envelopes for Eugene McCarthy’s second presidential bid in 1972. He spent hours tromping through the swamps of the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio, researching for his school report on great blue herons. He drilled holes in his toothbrush handle to lighten his load for a backpacking trip. He got a motorcycle and took off, often with lifelong friend Daphne Hsu on the seat behind him, exploring country roads until his parents found out and made him sell the bike. At University of Chicago, Brian still labeled himself “a geek, but also an athlete and a hippie, with hair down to my shoulders.” He protested the war in Vietnam and Apartheid in South Africa.
After college, he worked for Congressman Charles Vanik (D-OH), a rewarding stint that also led to his meeting Fred Jaffe, who became a lifelong friend. After working at the World Bank in Chicago, Brian returned to the University of Chicago for an M.B.A, and then moved to Berkeley, California, where he worked in the corporate offices of Bank of America.
He moved back to Chicago, then to Denver, where he started his entrepreneurial career, becoming the chief financial officer of Buyer’s Club. There in Denver, another friend, Barbara Dau, set him up on a blind date with Carrie Manley, a news reporter for the ABC affiliate in Denver. They were married on a brilliantly clear and frosty day in January, 1989.
Carrie was from the San Francisco Bay Area, and, in 1990, the couple moved back to the region, settling into a little cottage in Woodside. Brian had been hired by Coopers & Lybrand in San Jose, where he established a successful practice as a financial consultant. Over time, he focused on the emerging field of clean energy, establishing the National Clean Energy Practice at Deloitte in 2004. One of his crowning achievements was helping launch the annual Winterfest, now in its 21st year, a high-level gathering that focuses on sustainable energy and climate solutions.
Home life bustled. Carrie and Brian welcomed son William in 1996, and daughter Ellen in 1999, prompting a move to a bigger house in Palo Alto. Brian was an extraordinarily devoted father, deeply involved with the raising of Will and Ellen, including coaching more than five dozen assorted sports teams. The kids grew, and started their own lives. In April 2025, William married Catalina Rubio of Roanoke, Virginia, and Brian and Carrie joyfully welcomed “Cat” into the fold.
Throughout the years, friends flowed through the Palo Alto house, friends that loved Brian for his intelligence, kindness, generosity, and unabashed love for throwing a good party.
Throughout it all, Brian mentored others. “Back in junior high, I would help the people in the back of the class,” he once shared. “Then in my jobs in financial consulting I would hire junior people and mentor them.” In retirement, Brian’s passion was to mentor young people to get jobs in clean energy, with impressive results: 22 mentees got rewarding jobs in the industry.
“Mentoring,” he said, “is the least I can do.”
Earlier this year, Brian was the proud recipient of the Winterfest’s first annual “Red Sweater Lifetime Achievement Award.” Along with this professional recognition, Brian was most grateful for decades of collaboration, trust, and friendship with his respected colleagues.
Brian was diagnosed with throat cancer in October, 2024. Throughout his illness, Brian was tremendously thankful for the sensitive, dedicated care and expertise of his entire medical team at Stanford Hospital, as well as the exceptional support and kindness provided by Suncrest Hospice.
Brian is survived by his wife Carrie Manley; son William Goncher and spouse Catalina Rubio of White Plains, NY; daughter Ellen Goncher of Seattle, WA; brother Gary and spouse Susan of Portland, OR; Dale Goncher and Lilla Smith of Brooklyn, NY; and Kurt Goncher and Ya Ching Hou of Chandler, AZ. He is also be missed by nieces and nephews, including Hannah and Natalie Goncher, Hannah and Sam Bloom, and Blue and Katherine Gonella Manley.
Tags: business