Myers, David N.

David N. Myers (1900-1999) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, Robert H. Myers, owned a barrel business and was one of the original founders of the Hebrew Orthodox Old Age Home in 1906. Robert H. Myers served as President of the Home from 1921 to 1924. David N. Myers worked his way through high school and earned a degree in accounting in 1922 from Dyke College, a local business college. Upon graduation, he accepted a position in accounting with the Francis Byerlyte Corporation, the company that invented the process of making asphalt from petroleum. He ultimately became president and owner of the company, later known as Consolidated Coatings Corporation. He was also chairman of Hastings Pavement Co. in New York. He married Inez Pink (1907-2002) in 1929, and the couple raised two sons, Hal and Dieter. Myers is widely recognized as a philanthropist whose financial contributions benefited the health and welfare of the citizens of the greater Cleveland area and the larger Jewish community. His primary philanthropic interest was aging and the elderly. Myers was instrumental in the move of the Jewish Orthodox Home for the Aged (the former Hebrew Orthodox Old Age Home, today known as the Menorah Park Center for Senior Living) from the Glenville neighborhood to Beachwood, Ohio. He also assisted in the building of new housing for aging men and women still independent enough to live in their own apartments, opened in 1978 as R.H. Myers Apartments. Myers contributed substantially to the development of medical research facilities at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Myers served as the President of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland from 1964 to 1969 and as a trustee of Mt. Sinai Hospital. Myers was also a trustee of the Western Reserve Historical Society. In 1981 he established a permanent endowment fund at the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland in support of the Cleveland Jewish Archives. The David and Inez Myers Foundation remains an influential charitable foundation in the Cleveland area. David N. Myers received a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Dyke College in 1982 and a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Cleveland State University in 1987. In 1995, Dyke College was renamed the David N. Myers College in recognition of Myers' contributions to the school. The school became Chancellor University in 2008. A street in Beachwood near the Menorah Park Center for Senior Living, the direct successor of the Hebrew Orthodox Old Age Home his father helped to found, was dedicated as the David N. Myers Parkway in 2001.