Staten Island Advance (New York)
August 22, 2007 Wednesday
CHARLES KLEIS, 64
SECTION: OBITS; Pg. A10
Date of Death: 08/20/2007 Bank president enjoyed computers, reading Charles J. Kleis, 64, of Annadale, a community bank president, died Monday in New York Methodist Hospital, Brooklyn.
Born in Brooklyn, he settled in Annadale in 1997.
Mr. Kleis attended Manhattan College and Pace University, where he studied accounting. An accounting officer during his service in the U.S. Army, he was discharged in 1963.
In the early 1970s, he went to work as an accountant for Atlas Savings Bank, a community bank in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. He remained there for more than 35 years, rising through the ranks and eventually becoming president, a goal he’d set when he first walked through its doors.
“He knew when he started he wanted to be president, and he said, ‘One day, I will,’ ” said his granddaughter, Theresa Kleis, who worked at the bank along with Mr. Kleis and his wife, the former Ingrid Eberl.
Mr. Kleis also was a licensed real-estate broker and mortgage broker in New York and Florida, although he devoted himself to his banking career.
In his leisure time, he enjoyed working with computers and reading, especially The New York Times and computer-related literature.
“He will be greatly missed,” said Ingrid, his wife of 45 years.
Surviving Mr. Kleis, in addition to his granddaughter and wife, are his son, William; his daughter, Nicole Kleis-Hattani; two sisters, Connie Smouse and Carol Sarni, and six more grandchildren.
The funeral will be Friday from the Colonial Funeral Home, New Dorp, with a mass at 9:15 a.m. in St. Charles R.C. Church, Oakwood. Entombment will be in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
LOAD-DATE: August 22, 2007
# # # # #
