Gregory W. Piasecki, innovative entrepreneur, business leader, and champion dragon boat paddler, has died at 52

Gregory W. Piasecki, 52, formerly of Haverford, creative entrepreneur, business leader, conservationist, and world champion dragon boat paddler, died Saturday, Aug. 5, of cardiac arrest in Hanover, N.H. Mr. Piasecki had just finished a rowing workout and was stricken near the Connecticut River.

The youngest of seven children, Mr. Piasecki was teased as “Tail-end Charlie” by his wiseguy siblings. In fact, he generally finished at the front of the pack in whatever he did.

He cofounded and was a top executive of a pioneering investment bank in China in the early 2000s. He served for a decade as an innovative top officer for Essington-based Dragonfly Pictures, his brother Michael’s firm that designs, manufactures, and markets unmanned vertical take-off and landing air vehicles.

He successfully oversaw his family’s investment holding companies for eight years and served on the board of Piasecki Aircraft Corp., the company his father founded in 1955. In a tribute, his family said his business acumen “was grounded in a unique leadership style, unifying people of all ages and cultures with his enthusiasm, imagination, and positivity.”

Former business colleague Sarah Weyerhaeuser praised Mr. Piasecki’s “optimism, enthusiasm, and perseverance.” Another former colleague, Melissa Davis, said: “Young people say that he was a mentor to them, but that he also treated them as equals.”

His sister, Lynn Cunningham, said: “He thought out of the box like our father and had a sense of grace like our mother.”

Mr. Piasecki won gold and silver medals as a member of a U.S. men’s team that paddled at the 2013 and 2011 Dragon Boat World Championships. At this year’s world championships in Thailand in early August, a U.S. team dedicated its race to Mr. Piasecki. It won the gold medal, and one of its paddlers said on Facebook: “We had all done it for Greg.”

U.S. Rowing is expected to name a boat in Mr. Piasecki’s honor at September’s world rowing championships in Belgrade, Serbia. “He had a lot of fans in the world,” one of his former coaches said.

Gregory Weyerhaeuser Piasecki was born to Frank and Vivian Piasecki in Wynnewood on Oct. 27, 1970. He grew up in Haverford and graduated from Haverford School in 1988. He rowed on the crew team at Yale University and earned a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering in 1992.

He received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1997 and worked at Morgan Stanley financial services company in New York. He helped establish Pacific Solutions Group in China in 2000 and worked with his brother at Dragonfly Pictures from 2003 to 2013.

He married Teresa Fort in 2009, and they had daughters Cornelia and Nicole, and son Jack, and lived in Hanover, N.H. They divorced later.

Mr. Piasecki sat on Hanover’s Upper Valley Land Trust board of trustees and the local school district’s equity committee. He became certified as a private pilot, joined the Upper Valley Rowing Club, and volunteered as a Nordic ski coach.

He liked to bicycle, hike, hunt, sail, and camp, and he built a tree house for his nieces and nephews, and a boat and chicken coop for his children. He enjoyed photography and was so complete a woodworker that he often cut down his own trees, milled them, and created mementos and furniture for relatives and friends.

“He had a joy in jumping headfirst into life’s activities I really admire so much,” friend James Gowen said. In its tribute, his family said he had “an enlightened sense of wit, love, and kindness that often transcended the ups and downs of normal life.”

His profile on X, formerly known as Twitter, is “patriot, pilot, parent.” His brother Frank said: “He was a humanist. He was interested in people at an individual level. He was a student of relationships between human beings.”

In addition to his children, two sisters, four brothers, and former wife, Mr. Piasecki is survived by other relatives.

A Funeral Mass is to be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 26, at St. John Neumann Parish Church, 380 Highland Lane, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010.

Donations in his name may be made to Upper Valley Land Trust, 19 Buck Rd., Hanover, N.H. 03755; and World Bicycle Relief, 1000 W. Fulton Market, 4th Floor, Chicago, Ill. 60607.