Eugene “Gene” Pressler, W3ZXV, of Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, passed away February 22. He was 80. Pressler, who served as an Assistant Director in the ARRL Atlantic Division, also served as the Public Information Coordinator and Assistant Section Manager for Eastern Pennsylvania, as well as the Division’s representative on the Public Relations Advisory Committee for several years.

In 1996, Pressler was honored by the Atlantic Division as its Amateur of the Year for a “lifetime of service to Amateur Radio”. He co-founded and served as Director Emeritus of the Area Repeater Coordination Council, the regional Amateur Radio repeater frequency coordinator for Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.

ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN, fondly remembered Pressler: “I met Gene at my first Atlantic Division Cabinet meeting in 1986, when I was Section Manager-elect and he was an Assistant Director. I quickly realized that I needed him on my leadership team and he later accepted appointment as Public Information Officer -- the position we now call Public Information Coordinator. Gene’s devotion to Amateur Radio through local clubs, repeater coordination and the ARRL made it an honor to know him and work with him.”

Pressler authored three articles for QST -- “MOEDRAS,” July 1969; “Fighting City Hall: A Success Story Against Restrictive Antenna Ordinances,” January 1987, and “Monitoring the Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet Impacts,” December 1994 (ARRL membership required to access articles). A series of articles he authored in the 1980s-era Eastern Pennsylvania Section newsletter EPA Feedline became the basis for the ARRL PIO Handbook, the first League publication in support of PR volunteers in the Field Organization. “He could have just complained that there were no resources for these volunteers, but that’s not Gene,” Craigie said. “He did something about it.”

In 1971, Pressler joined Continental Bank as its Manager of Employee Relations and Assistant Director of Personnel before becoming Director of Human Resources. He retired in 1991 as the bank’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources. Pressler also served as a member of the Board of Directors at Foulkeways, a continuing care community of 400 residents in Gwynedd, chairing the Pension and Personnel Committee and serving as a member of its Executive Committee and Finance Committee. A longtime resident of Maple Glen, Pressler co-chaired the Maple Glen Village Association and was a member and Director of the Maple Glen Business and Professional Association. He served for many years as a member of the Advisory Boards of the Philadelphia Business Academy, the Philadelphia Opportunities Industrialization Center and the Pennsylvania Bankers Association’s Central Atlantic School of Banking at Bucknell University

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 AM on Saturday, March 5 at the First Presbyterian Church of Ambler, in Ambler, Pennsylvania.