Charles Shimel
Charles Shimel, who served as a trustee of the Palisades Free Library since 2004, died July 25th, when he lost a courageous battle to recover from the lung surgery he underwent last November. He died at the Friedwald Center in New City with his wife, Harriet Hyams, and his family at his side. He was 86 years old.
Charles, a civil engineer, and Harriet, the noted stained glass artist, moved to Lawrence Lane in Palisades in 1981. This was a second marriage for both. They have been married 35 years.
Charles received his BS in Civil Engineering at Columbia University, School of Engineering, in 1950. Before that, he served in the Army as a medic in the Second World War. As a graduate assistant at Columbia he participated in foundation studies for the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Holland-American Pier on the Hudson River in New York City.
Following graduation, he joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and worked on the construction of five U.S. Air Force bases in French Morocco. He later worked at Haller Testing Laboratories in Plainfield, New Jersey, where he served as Soils Engineer, Principal Engineer and Vice President before forming his own subsidiary firm, Haller and Shimel Consulting Engineers. He was Chief Operating Officer and President of the firm. In twenty-two years, the firm undertook more than 2000 projects all over the United States. In 1975 he organized the independent firm of Charles Shimel Consulting Engineers, Inc. Among his clients and projects were: AT&T, Schering Plough Co., Ciba Geigy, Merck and Co., Warner Lambert Co., Delta Airlines, TWA, Exxon, Hertz, IBM, Shell Oil and the New Jersey State Division of Building and Construction. After selling his interest in his firm, he continued his professional practice in Geotechnical Engineering as a sole practitioner in Tappan from 1996 until recently.
Charles also taught soils engineering for many years as adjunct faculty at Rutgers University. He presented training courses to many state and local agencies in New York and New Jersey, and published a training manual for the United States Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The manual was distributed to all offices of the Labor Department. He taught compliance to officers and personnel of OSHA from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.
As a trustee of the Palisades Library, Charles oversaw finances and was responsible for general maintenance of the library. He and his fellow trustees initiated the successful Sunday afternoon Palisades People series in which he frequently acted as coordinator out of personal commitment and interest. He also helped inaugurate and he participated in a local men’s book club. He was an avid golfer and sailor on his own sailboat which he kept in Stamford on Long Island Sound.
Charles is survived by his wife, Harriet; two daughters, Robin Binns and Esti Toboul; two step-children, Irene Woodard and Andy Hyams; three grandchildren, Elana and Aaron Toboul and Emily Binns; and four stepgrandchildren, Max and Catherine Woodard and Ben and Josh Hyams.
The Palisades Library has created a memorial fund to honor Charles’ work and dedication to the library. If you would like to contribute, please send a check made out to The Palisades Free Library with Charles Shimel in the memo field.