Watsonville business leader dies at Lake Tahoe - San Francisco Chronicle

The president and CEO of a Watsonville construction-materials distributor was found dead Sunday in Lake Tahoe, authorities said.

Bruce Woolpert, 61, who had led family-run Graniterock since 1987, apparently drowned after tying up the family boat in Kings Beach on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, according to the Placer County Sheriff's Department.

He had dropped his son and several family friends off at a pier near the Brockway Vista condominiums, where they had been staying, at about 2 p.m. before attaching a dinghy to his boat and heading back out to moor it to a buoy, said Sgt. Dave Hunt.

Woolpert's body was found facedown on the shore about 4:30 p.m., his dinghy floating about 50 feet south, Hunt said. He was not wearing a life jacket.

The investigation is ongoing, but no foul play is suspected.

Woolpert had taken over the 112-year-old business from his parents more than 20 years ago after a 10-year stint at Hewlett-Packard, said Graniterock marketing services manager Keith Severson. He earned his undergraduate degree from UCLA and a business degree from Stanford University.

Born and raised in Watsonville, Woolpert lived in Cupertino and believed in working hard and "always doing better," Severson said.

"He was just an incredibly hardworking individual, and a real believer in continual improvement," he said. "He would work seven days a week, all the time."

Mark Kaminski, a family friend and member of Graniterock's board of directors, will take over for Woolpert as chairman of the board and acting CEO, but the board plans to keep the company in the family in the long run, Severson said.

Funeral plans are pending, Severson said.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo