Chuck Martin, an Orange County businessman well-known for investments, education and charity work, died on Tuesday. He was 80.
“Chuck fought so hard because he had so much for which to live and still had so much yet to do,” his wife, Twyla, said in an email.
Martin died in the early hours of the morning at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach after battling cancer.
He was well-known in the Orange County business community for many reasons. His firm, Enterprise Partners, managed funds for top investors, such as Harvard and Yale, and he created Westar Capital along with George Argyros, a company that acquired and built 25 companies.
As an activist in education, he helped build many programs at the University of California-Irvine and Chapman University. As a philanthropist, he along with his wife, Twyla, was an instrumental figure in the Orange County Museum of Art; he served as its founding chairman for four years and held the title of Founding Chairman Emeritus. He helped persuade South Coast Plaza founder Henry Segerstrom to donate a site at the Performing Arts Center to OCMA to establish a complex with music, theater and visual arts, all at one campus.
In the month he was diagnosed with cancer, he started writing his book, “Orange County, Inc., — The Evolution of an Economic Powerhouse.” The book was published last year to widespread praise in the business community.
The Business Journal will publish a more extensive article about Martin’s life in Monday’s print edition.
