Charles S. H. Myers, former president of Leather Industries of America who also enjoyed cultivating azaleas, died Friday of complications from cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Center in Columbia.

The Laurel resident was 82.

The son of Charles Spurgeon Myers, a purchasing agent, and Estelle Myers, a homemaker, Charles Stephen Hill Myers was born in Baltimore and raised in Mayfield.

After graduating from Gilman School in 1953, he served in the Army as a cryptographer in Germany. He was discharged in 1956.

He attended the Johns Hopkins University on the GI Bill of Rights and earned a bachelor's degree in business in 1960.

Mr. Myers worked in Washington for various trade associations.

For the last 20 years, until his retirement in 2003, he was president of Leather Industries of America.

Family members said he led American tanneries into the 21st century during a period of challenging global markets.

The former Ellicott City resident, who lived in Laurel, enjoyed cultivating azaleas and cared for hundreds of plants. He traveled to Exbury Gardens in Hampshire, England, to study its collection of azaleas and rhododendrons cultivated by hybridizer Lionel de Rothschild.

Mr. Myers was also a collector of Chinese export porcelain.

He was a communicant of St. Louis Roman Catholic Church, 12500 Clarksville Pike, Clarksville, where a Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. today.

Mr. Myers is survived by his wife of 58 years, the former Mary Jane Borrows; three sons, John Myers and Michael Myers, both of Laurel, and Chuck Myers of Colorado Springs; a daughter, Stephanie Grady of Poughquag, N.Y.; a brother, Donald Myers of Bradenton, Fla.; and eight grandchildren.

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— Frederick N. Rasmussen