The Landmark College community mourns the passing of Charles Scureman Strauch, Founding Chairman of the Landmark College Board of Trustees, and the most generous benefactor in the College’s history. Strauch died peacefully at his home on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, on May 10, 2026, just days short of his 91st birthday.
For more than four decades, Strauch helped imagine, build, and sustain the institution that today stands as the nation’s premier college for students who learn differently. His belief in Landmark’s mission — and in the potential of every student who walks its campus — has shaped nearly every chapter of the College’s story.
A Founder’s Vision
When Dr. Charles Drake set out to establish Landmark College in 1985 on the former campus of Windham College in Putney, Vermont, Charles Strauch was at his side. As Founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees, he helped turn an ambitious idea — a college built entirely around students with learning differences — into a living institution. It was, at the time, a singular notion, and it required founders willing to take a risk on something the world had not yet seen.
Charles Strauch was exactly that kind of founder. Over the decades that followed, he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees and later as Chairman Emeritus, offering steady guidance through the College’s formative years and well into its maturity. His wife, Nan, who predeceased him in 2018, served for many years as a Landmark College trustee in her own right, making the Strauch’s one of the families most deeply woven into the fabric of the institution.
A Legacy Built into the Campus
Charles and Nan Strauch’s generosity is visible across the Putney campus and woven through the programs that define Landmark College today. Their support helped make possible the Strauch Family Student Center, opened in 1997, which remains a hub of campus life — home to Student Affairs, Health & Counseling, the bookstore, the Fireside Cafe, and the everyday gathering places where students build community.
Their giving also helped create Charles Drake Field, the Nicole MacFarlane Science, Technology & Innovation Center, and early digital learning efforts that led to the creation of LC Online, the College’s pioneering venture into online education for students who learn differently.
In 2022, Charles made a $3 million gift on behalf of the Strauch family — the largest single donation in the College’s history. The gift anchored Landmark’s Imagine Campaign and was directed toward expanding LC Online and developing satellite programs modeled on the College’s Bay Area Success Center in California, extending Landmark’s reach to students far beyond the Putney, Vermont campus.
Also in 2022, Charles Strauch received the first Landmark College Founder’s Award. In remarks given while receiving the award, Strauch said that “As a guy who has achieved some success in business, I can tell you that there is no place in my life has had more of an impact than Landmark College.”
An Entrepreneur’s Spirit
The drive Charles brought to Landmark was the same drive that defined his remarkable career in business. A 1957 graduate of Lehigh University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, he spent much of his professional life leading and revitalizing technology companies. He served as Chairman and founder of GAServices, Chairman and CEO of PairGain Technologies, President and CEO of MSI Data, Chairman and CEO of Magnusson Computer Systems, President of Memorex, and Executive Vice President of Gould Inc. For the last thirty years of his life, he devoted himself to providing lines of credit to small businesses — a continuation of his lifelong commitment to entrepreneurship and economic opportunity.
That commitment extended naturally to education. A passionate advocate for educational opportunity and school choice, Strauch supported initiatives aimed at expanding opportunity for disadvantaged communities. His work for Landmark reflected the same instinct: a conviction that talent and potential are distributed far more widely than opportunity, and that the right kind of institution could close that gap.
“If It Is to Be, It Is Up to Me”
Those who knew Charles Strauch knew his guiding philosophy, a phrase he returned to often and passed down to his children and grandchildren: "If it is to be, it is up to me.”
It was more than a motto. It captured the optimism, resilience, and sense of personal responsibility that animated his life. He held an uncommon respect for ordinary people — the workers, teachers, parents, veterans, and community leaders who quietly sustain the country he loved — and he credited his own success to the values instilled by his parents, the sacrifices of the generations before him, and an abiding faith. He spoke often of his gratitude for Nan, his wife of sixty years, his family, and the opportunities afforded to those willing to work hard, take risks, and persevere.
A Lasting Impact
Charles Strauch is survived by his five children – including Charley, an early alumnus of the College – sixteen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, who carry forward his legacy of determination, resilience, optimism, and service. At Landmark College, that legacy lives in every student who discovers a way to learn that works for them, in every building that bears the mark of the Strauch family’s generosity, and in the very existence of an institution he helped will into being more than forty years ago.
Landmark College President Jim Dlugos reflected upon the Strauch family’s impact at the College in a note to campus staff and faculty, writing that Charles and Nan “were both deeply committed members of the Landmark community and served the College with extraordinary generosity and care.” In recognition of Strauch’s legacy at the College, campus flags were flown at half-staff throughout the week of his passing.
The College extends its deepest condolences to the Strauch family. Charles’s vision helped shape Landmark College from its earliest days, and his belief in the potential of every learner will continue to guide the institution he loved for generations to come.
Those wishing to honor Charles Strauch’s memory may consider a gift to the Charles S. Strauch Scholarship Endowed Scholarship program at Landmark College. Please reach out to Carol Nardino for more information.
The College is also planning an on-campus recognition event in honor/memory of Charles and Nan Strauch in the coming months. Stay tuned for more information.