J. Edward (Ed) Fowler, former general counsel of Mobil

J. Edward Fowler, general counsel of Mobil Corp. and Mobil Oil Corp. from 1986 to 1994 who loved the law and the mountains, has died at age 87.

His son, Thomas Fowler, said he died May 19 from complications following coronary bypass surgery.

“My Dad loved the law [and] the way in which it served society, and how it provided for an intelligent construct within which people and organizations could be treated fairly, issues could be solved and the world could be moved forward,” the son said Monday.

Fowler, an environmental activist, grew up amid “humble beginnings” in mountain logging towns in Idaho, the son said. He attended school in a one-room schoolhouse where grades 1 through 12 shared one teacher but went on to attend Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude.

After serving in the Army for three years, he attended Yale Law School and then joined what is now Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. In 1968 he left to join Mobil's in-house legal department, where he stayed 26 years, working his way up to general counsel in 1986.

After he left Mobil, Fowler joined Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C., as senior counsel until he retired in 1998. A Holland & Knight spokesperson was able to provide employment dates but could not immediately locate anyone who worked with him.

Fowler was active in numerous professional organizations, including on the board of directors of the American Corporate Counsel Association, now the Association of Corporate Counsel, and the American Arbitration Association. In 1993 he was the founding chairman of the Corporate Commission of the Conference on Opportunities for Minorities in the Legal Profession.

He also served with numerous local and national civic groups, including three years as chairman of the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.

“Despite living his entire adult life on the East Coast, he never lost his love for the mountains and found the Adirondacks [in upstate New York] to be strikingly similar to the mountains of his youth,” Thomas Fowler said.

The father and son often took backpacking trips into the Adirondacks, “including trips in the dead of winter, snowshoeing and camping in the wilderness peaks in temperatures as low as -40 F,” the son said.

The family bought into a 100-year-old camp called Moose Misse on a remote lake with log cabins accessible only on foot or by canoe. “Our family goes there every summer still, and Dad as recently as last summer,” he added.

His love of the mountains led Fowler to become a leader of several environmental groups for the 6 million-acre Adirondack State Park. The son said his father never saw a conflict between working for an oil company and his love of nature.

“He saw the oil industry as an essential part of the national and global economy, which of course it is, and that there was great value in supporting the responsible exercise of Mobil's affairs in the most ethical and environmentally sensitive ways,” the son explained.

Besides Thomas, of Garden City, New York, Fowler is survived by his wife of 60 years, Carolyn; a daughter, Barbara Houston of Kent, Connecticut; and four grandchildren. A memorial service is set to be held Aug. 11 in Keene Valley, New York, in the High Peaks region of Fowler's beloved Adirondacks.

Correction: An earlier version of the article had the incorrect date of Fowler's death. He died May 19.