C.D. Spangler Jr., 15th president of UNC, dies at 86

Editor’s note: The late C.D. Spangler was the 15th president of the University of North Carolina but the second president of the unified UNC system.

A North Carolina legend has died, leaving behind a rich legacy at the University of North Carolina.

UNC President Emeritus C.D. Spangler Jr. died July 23, 2018. He is survived by his wife Meredith, and his daughters, Abigail Riggs Spangler and Anna Spangler Nelson, the latter of whom serves on the UNC Board of Governors.

Spangler was 86.

Spangler succeeded Bill Friday as president of the unified UNC system in 1986. He was a Charlotte native and a successful businessman, operating the family construction company for more than three decades and eventually running Bank of North Carolina, which his father founded. Bank of North Carolina merged with NCNB in 1982 and, after Spangler became president of the UNC system, NCNB — renamed NationsBank — bought Bank of America. In 1995, he bought National Gypsum, the nation’s largest producer of drywall.

Spangler was among the world’s wealthiest people. In 2016, Forbes ranked him No. 722, with a net worth of $4.2 billion.

Spangler received his bachelor’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Spangler never accepted a paycheck during his 11 years in office, donating his salary to individual UNC campuses. He used his private plane — instead of state-funded jets — for travel.

“C.D. Spangler Jr. was a great North Carolinian, and he will forever be a giant of our state,” said UNC President Margaret Spellings. “He will be remembered as a gifted business leader, a compassionate philanthropist, and above all as a public servant who answered the call of the university at a critical time in its history.”

“The first in his family to go to college, Dick never forgot who our public universities were meant to serve. North Carolina is the prosperous, growing state that it is because of principled leaders like Dick,” she said.

The former chairman of the N.C. State Board of Education, Spangler worked to keep tuition low and reformed UNC athletic programs to promote integrity and transparency. He was a booster of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the system, which he thought had been neglected by board members focused on the flagship campuses UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University.

The president donated to the university via the Spangler family foundation, funding more than 120 professorships across all 16 universities.

“[Spangler] made the system a more comfortable place for women and minorities; he sought them out and pushed them into positions of leadership,” said Wyndham Robertson, Spangler’s vice president for communications from 1986-95.

“He was a great boss. As the first female vice president of the UNC System, I had some tricky moments, but I always knew he had my back. He loved North Carolina and often said being president was the best job in the world.”