Remembering Peter O. Willauer
Our Founder and Board Emeritus

Peter O. Willauer November 24, 1934 - November 6, 2025

We are so grateful for the over 60 years Peter has provided exceptional education programming on Hurricane Island, and we are honored to carry on his vision.

Please Share Your Memories of Peter With Our Community

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I feel so fortunate to have been with POW on Hurricane Island in early September as a part of our Board meeting. The forecast was for stormy seas but POW and Carol stressed that we must press onward. I am so glad they did as so many on the island were moved to be in POW's presence. I sat next to him in the Mess Hall and asked him how it felt to be back. Without hesitating he responds "I feel relaxed". Many generations of students gathered around, leaned in and shared their stories about what they learned from POW and their own island experience. It is a moment I will never forget and will always cherish. POW's leadership put so many of us first and now he can "relax", his work is in good hands.

- Bo Hoppin, Executive Director

Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership is honored to be a trusted part of POW's legacy. Please consider a gift to the fund Peter helped us set up in his honor in order to sustain the infrastructure of our island campus.

Peter O. Willauer: Founding Visionary Leadership & Education on Hurricane Island

Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership is honored to carry forward the vision Peter O. Willauer began in 1964. In continuing the legacy of offering innovative experiential education on Hurricane Island, we are fortunate to have had Peter’s guidance as we developed programming to address the environmental challenges students face today.

As you will read in the tributes below, Peter’s impact is immeasurable.

Peter was a Founding Board Member and will always be a revered Board Emeritus of Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership.

Special thanks to Carol Willauer for many of the photos above

Tributes:

I remember sailing in to Thompson's Island once when POW happened to be standing on the dock. He watched as we sailed in against the wind and tide and I executed a turn into the dock as I instructed my students to drop sail. "Nicely done," he said in a quiet voice and I felt the praise all through me. Peter was understated and such an inspiration. So sorry to lose him.

—Pamela Powell

I first met Peter in the early 80's while taking a grad class under Lester Picker at the University of Delaware. The class was held on Bar Island. Many icons of marine education visited us on the island including academics, fishermen, the head of NOAA, and Peter. Peter took us out to Hurricane and showed us the programs being offered. He convinced me to volunteer doing my summers for many years. I have many fond memories of working with kids, executives and even a group of blind kids climbing in the quarry. I now have a cabin on Green's Island, next to Hurricane, and am looking forward to working with the next chapter in Peter's Legacy. Condolences to his family and the marine ed world.

—Steve Melcher

One evening in the mid-1990s, as a young watch officer on loan to the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center from the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, I was working alone on a pulling boat alongside the TIOBEC pier. I was putting the boat to bed at the end of a frenzied course. The students and the program had been wonderful, but it was the first sailing course of the season, and I felt like I hadn't stopped moving once as I hustled to get all the pieces in the place at an unfamiliar base. Now, alone and with no time pressure other than the setting sun and a chill May nor' westerly, I was carefully flaking the mainsail on the deck, quite lost in my task of smoothing the creases and getting the flakes even before putting the sail into the sail bag, when I realized I wasn't alone.

I looked above me to the pier and there was POW, wordlessly watching me work. I recognized him and gave a small wave, unsure why I had captured his attention. He smiled and called down to me, "It's so nice to see that boat taken care of." I couldn't think of an answer but I didn't need one. He was already walking down to the end of the pier to the waiting ferry.

I felt the fatigue drain off me as I returned to my course end chores. "Yes," I mused, writing a couple of notes to the next captain and signing myself out of the ship's logbook, "as a lifelong sailor, POW would understand: we take care of the boat so it will take care of its crew." He had found me setting the boat up to take care of the next crew of students and staff, whom I would never meet, and he was telling me that no amount of care was too much.

—Caroline Blair-Smith

I did OutwardBound in 2000 and I was a kid that needed to discover for myself teamwork and thinking skills as well as being creative. I did the sailing program. I gained so much knowledge and experiences of a lifetime. Thank you Peter for creating me,shaking my hands before and confine afterwards. This program will always be dear to me and to those who still work there,keep his legacy going,smile and love like he loved. Adventure is out there, I salute you my dear friend 🫡 Sail on sailor, sail on!

—Leandro Strathmeyer

I, like thousands of others, had my perspective and my life changed by HIOB. Godspeed… Winter camping Dec 82.

—Charlie Lownes

Peter O Willauer

Peter Willauer assumed demigod stature in my mind and in my heart.

My most vivid memory of Peter was on HIOBS course H-59, with Sam Scott. It was solo, four days and three nights on my own island, with daily check-ins, and a Euell Gibbons book detailing edible plants and critters.

On day four, the day our watch, Shackleton, were all looking forward to getting warm and back together, hours went by and there was no pickup boat. Finally, Peter showed up with his personal Boston Whaler. He explained that seven squalls had blown through Hurricane Island the night before, knocked out all the boats, and he was ferrying all the solo HIOBS students back on his own.

So there we were, three of us, with Peter, right into the wind, thrilled to be out there, perched on the bow, and speeding back to the Island. One of us lost his hat in the face of the wind, blown right off his head. Peter reach up from his position astern and casually picked the hat out of the air. To this day I just can’t believe it. Plucked it right out of the air. That solidified POW, etched in my memory as the gods I believed OB instructors and staff to be.

Years later, I was thrilled to reconnect with Peter. Katie Pastuszek and I were creating Outward Bound Philly, then a program of HIOBS, under the care and stewardship of BCBOB’s David Starnes. Peter came by to encourage us. I loved the legacy and the longevity, and the legend that Peter has been to Outward Bound.

After moving to Canada in 2004, I connected with OB here and have worked as a BC Wilderness Instructor, logie and course director. Peter’s legacy lives on.

—James "Jim" Flom

HIOBS_H-59 is our watch, Shackleton, with Sam Scott. All other shots are OB Canada in BC. Skyscraper rappel was a Dare to Leap fundraiser rappelling the Shaw Tower in downtown Vancouver, April 16, 2015, to fundraise for Outward Bound Canada's urban programs. (I'm on the left.)

I was a student at HIOBS in 1970, (H-25, Slocum Watch), and worked H-30 and H-33 the same year. Peter taught me how to row (feather and scull) sideways in a skiff. I still often use his technique when approaching my boat on the mooring. Lots of good lessons indeed. Peter made it past ninety. Not a bad run. Sail on Cap, sail on...

—Cummins (“Jay”) Speakman, Gearhart Oregon and Little Cranberry Island, Maine

Peter Willauer was recruited to start HIOBS by Josh Miner who was a close friend of Kurt Hahn. Prior to that Peter was the sailing coach of the US Naval Academy.

I knew him as I was the first HIOBS Trustee from Philadelphia. I went on a HIOBS invitational to Hurricane Island in 1982 where I first met Peter. He encouraged me to bring HIOBS to Philadelphia.

Bayard Fiechter and I hosted the very first Outward Bound fund raiser here in Philadelphia, at the Phila Zoo, in May of 1985. Peter Willauer was our co-host.

He was a larger than life guy and an OB role model in every way.

—Tim Greenwood, POBS cofounder

The legendary Peter Willauer. He was a noted sailor and avid adventurer with bold ideas that were well outside the box at times.

He was among the early pioneers of Outward Bound in the USA and under his leadership HIOBS became the largest OB School with programs running from Maine to the Florida Keys.

—Katie Newsom, former POBS Executive Director

Peter Willauer was a force and his efforts were key to putting OB on the map.

He was also a gentleman and a very good sailor. We lost one of the good guys. He will be missed.

—Jon Conant, POBS Trustee Emeritus

I got to know Peter Willauer quite well when I was chair of the Board of OBUSA (1992-1996). Peter earned a lot of respect from the Board and the staffs. Many turned to him for advice. The Board always listened to what he had to say - great ideas, creative, can do attitude, commanding presence, irreverence for the OB system and its conflicts, great sense of humor.

Peter Willauer was constantly testing the boundaries of what OB should be doing and setting examples of what could be, and should be, done. Peter was “bigger than life”.

Having been to HIOBS when Peter was the leader it was a vibrant, exciting, active place. I can see Peter now sailing his craft around heaven enlivening the quiet spots, giving cheer to those burdened with their deaths, joining the disciples for an uproarious evening. He was one of a kind. His spirit will be missed.

—Jamie McLane, POBS Trustee Emeritus and Former OBUSA Board Chair

Pete was a cool guy. We were neighbors for many years when I was a kid. He was head of the Boys Scouts and a million other things. This story is about Pete rescuing me from a serious pounding. I was playing music at the Black Pearl in Rockland in the early 1980s. One night during Lobster Festival time, Pete was there with his work group. A group of guys from the Navy boats came in and loudly demanded songs I didn't know. Pete kept glancing over as it got louder. Before full insanity broke out, Pete came over and gently put his arm around the biggest loudmouth. He talked him down before I was airborne. Thanks, Pete.

—David Hynd