Alan M. Waller Sr., a retired American Telephone & Telegraph executive and Air Force reservist, died Saturday of pancreatic cancer at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home in Hunt Valley. The longtime Murray Hill resident was 86.

Alan Murray Waller Sr., the son of British immigrants John G. Waller, a steamship captain and Farrell Lines commodore, and Margaret Murray Waller, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Govans.

After graduating in 1949 from City College, he entered the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a member of the Air Force ROTC. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1953 and later earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1979.

Commissioned as an Air Force pilot, he was stationed in San Antonio and Fayetteville, N.C., from 1953 to 1957.

He entered the AT&T management training program and eventually became a district manager in Baltimore in marketing and personnel management. He retired in 1982.

Mr. Waller continued as a member of the Air Force 135th Reserve Unit and was later reassigned to active duty, serving in the Pentagon’s General Services Division and attaining the rank of colonel.

A tennis player, he continued to play until he was 85, often with players 10 to 15 years younger, said a son, Alan Murray Waller Jr. of Ruxton.

Mr. Waller and his wife, the former Nancy Ann Gray, whom he married in 1953, enjoyed spending summers at their home at Sea Colony in Bethany Beach, Del.

Mr. Waller was a member of the Johns Hopkins Club.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles St.

In addition to his wife of 62 years and his son, Mr. Waller is survived by another son, James J. Waller of West Towson; a daughter, Anne Waller McAvoy of Monkton; and eight grandchildren.

— Frederick N. Rasmussen