Polar explorer, scientist, pilot, musician, cyclist, father, and beloved husband of Barbara Greene for the last 67 years, died in Santa Barbara on June 11, 2026 at age 91.
Throughout his exhilarating life, he accepted positions of leadership in his community and profession.
Besides his widow, he leaves two sons Douglas (Nancy), of Portland, Connecticut, and Scott (Julia) of Playa del Rey, California; three grandchildren; his sister Nolia Stephan, of Bradenton, Florida; and five nieces and nephews.
Charles was predeceased by his brother Donald Greene and sister Elizabeth McWilliams.
Born in Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, on Jan. 12, 1935 to Charles R. Greene and Jennie Thorpe Greene, he was the oldest of four children. He grew up in the Lago Oil company town in Aruba, where he learned to sail, even building his own boat.
His father taught him to enjoy flying airplanes. His mother taught him how to play the piano and enjoy music.
At Phillips Academy Andover, Charles took his studies seriously and performed on the prep school’s famous pipe organ.
A member of the Class of 1956 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), he was president of his fraternity Phi Beta Epsilon before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering.
Always up for an adventure, Charles joined a team of 18 scientists wintering over at the South Pole Station in the International Geophysical Year of 1958. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names designated a five-mile-long rock formation in Antarctica “Greene Ridge” in his honor.
After deciding life was too short not to spend it in Santa Barbara, he drove his young family and a St. Bernard across the country in 1963. Santa Barbara became his base for studying underwater acoustics.
Charles once defined his life’s work as separating signals from noise in the world’s oceans, including the Arctic, often working from islands of ice for GM, Delco, Anacapa Sciences, and Polar Research Laboratories.
Locally, Charles became a scuba diver for his work and would bring home abalone and lobster when the day was done. He helped lead backpacking trips into the High Sierra with his sons’ Scout Troop 26.
He enjoyed interviewing applicants to M.I.T.
Charles also excelled at typing, winning parent-student contests at La Colina Junior High. He was president of the Santa Barbara Flying Club before he acquired his own plane.
Charles and Barbara also led the Taws ‘n’ Paws square dancing club in the late 1960s.
He earned a Ph.D. from UCSB in electrical engineering in 1978, then founded his own company Greeneridge Sciences, in 1982. He developed electronics and software for recording and analyzing the effects of noise on marine mammals, such as bowhead whales, off the north slope of Alaska.
Charles co-authored the book “Marine Mammals and Noise,” and was named a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 1999. He helped establish national standards and attended scientific conferences around the world.
Charles was president of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara in 1986-87, president of the Santa Barbara Symphony Association in 2005-07, and past president of the Resident Council of Valle Verde.
He belonged to the Antarctican Society, M.I.T. Alumni Association, Andover Alumni, and La Cumbre Country Club, and had been a longtime member of the Santa Barbara Club.
He prided himself on tying his own bowties, and enjoyed the works of Mark Twain, Cormac McCarthy, and John McPhee.
Flying airplanes was a passion for Charles into his 70s, when he would take his grandchildren for joyrides. Earlier, he and his friends would load their bicycles into a plane and fly to Tahoe or Napa for rides, or go overseas with wives and tandem bicycles. They enjoyed 7 a.m. Sunday rides to breakfast around Santa Barbara for decades.
In his final years, dementia reduced him, but he would still try to separate signals from noise. Charles regaled his caregivers at Valle Verde with stories, poetry recitals, and attempts to speak Spanish.
To the caregivers and nurses, his family is grateful.
A memorial service will be held at 11 am, Saturday, July 11 in the theater at Valle Verde in Santa Barbara.
Donations can be made to the Scholarship Foundation, Santa Barbara Symphony, or a favorite charity.