Kaya Tuncer, 74, passed away on January 7 at his Pacific Palisades home after a two-and-a-half-year struggle with stomach cancer and its complications. A resident here since 1969, Kaya was an entrepreneur, philanthropist and mega-builder. He oversaw numerous large construction projects and business ventures throughout the world. The chain of events leading up to Kaya’s greatest achievement’ development of one of the world’s leading industrial parks’reads like a classic American immigrant success story. Kaya was born in 1937 in Trabzon, Turkey. His father was a high school teacher of Turkish literature. His mother worked as a seamstress so that they could afford to send him to a French-language boarding school in Istanbul. At the age of 19, the bold and determined young Turk immigrated to the United States to pursue his dream of becoming a builder. Kaya arrived in California in 1957 with only $80 in his pocket and set out to complete his higher education. He worked various jobs, including washing dishes, to put himself through college and send money back to his family in Turkey. He first studied at Santa Ana College, then obtained a degree in civil engineering from UC Berkeley in 1962. While living at International House at Berkeley, Kaya met his future wife of 48 years, Mary. ’Kaya liked to joke that he got me for a dime,’ Mary says. He had given 10 cents to a girl at the International House Cafe because she needed change to make a phone call. To repay him, Kaya suggested they meet for coffee the next day. The young lady told him she had a fianc’, but agreed to meet anyway, bringing along a friend of hers, Mary. Kaya and Mary were married a year and a half later, first living in Santa Ana, then in married-student housing at USC, where Kaya received an MBA in international business in 1967. Just before they were expecting their first child, Kaya and Mary moved to Pacific Palisades and bought their first house on Bollinger Drive. For some time, Kaya pursued a Ph.D. in business management at USC. Although he completed all the coursework, he never wrote his dissertation. Instead, he continued to pursue what he really wanted to do’ build things and bring projects from concept to fruition. And that he did. Kaya had a 50-year career with major construction, architectural, engineering and real estate development companies, eventually starting his own company. In the 1960s and early ’70s, Kaya worked at the Los Angeles-based Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM) and Gruen Associates. One of his notable projects from that time was the structural engineering design on 100 Wilshire, formerly known as the GTE Building, designed by Cesar Pelli. This landmark high-rise office building in Santa Monica, where Wilshire meets Ocean Avenue, is visible from Malibu to Palos Verdes on a clear day. In the early 1970s, just before their second daughter was born, Kaya and Mary built a new home for themselves on Lucero Drive, off Paseo Miramar. As a construction executive for Bechtel Corporation in the ’70s and ’80s, Kaya played a major role in the development of the Saudi Arabian Industrial City of Jubail and the James Bay hydroelectric complex in Canada. He moved the whole family to Montreal for one year, then Saudi Arabia for six years, eventually returning to their home in the Palisades. Kaya eventually left Bechtel to start his own ventures. Shortly thereafter, the Turkish government offered him the opportunity to develop and operate the Aegean Free Zone in Izmir, Turkey (a free zone is an industrial park with special tax advantages offered by the government to create jobs). Kaya launched the project in 1990 on 550 acres of vacant land. Over the last 22 years, Kaya spent much of his time commuting back and forth between Los Angeles and Turkey, creating a flourishing industrial park that transformed the region and bettered the lives of countless people who were able to find jobs at a time when unemployment rates ran high in Turkey. Today, the Aegean Free Zone is Turkey’s leading industrial park, employing 20,000 people, with a trade volume of $5 billion in 2011. Though most of his construction work involved mega-building projects overseas, Kaya built three more houses in Pacific Palisades, including his home of the past 20 years on Las Pulgas Road. Improving the lives of the people who worked for him was of utmost importance to Kaya. He extended the American dream of home ownership to his employees in Turkey, offering them loans to buy homes at a time when a mortgage system did not exist in Turkey. He also provided a childcare center, gymnasium and sculpture garden and beautifully landscaped grounds. Many of the elements that Kaya used in creating a world-class industrial park came from ideas he got locally. He modeled the sports complex that he built for Aegean Free Zone employees in part after the new gym at the Palisades Recreation Center. When Kaya built the childcare center at the zone, he wanted to make it state-of-the-art, using Santa Monica-based architect Aleks Istanbullu, who grew up in Turkey. Landscaping was a major element as well. Mary was very involved with that, and over the last 20 years brought many plants from California for use in landscaping at the zone, since the climates are very similar. ’If the Aegean Free Zone is testimony to Kaya’s most remarkable contribution as a builder, then the establishment of Space Camp Turkey can be considered his biggest gift to youth of the world,’ remarked Scott Woodham, director of international marketing for Space Camp Turkey. ’Kaya’s vision to shape future leaders through space science education has resulted in over 100,000 participants from nearly 55 countries,’ Woodham added. Kaya had many other interests. He was an antique-car aficionado, creating an antique-car museum at the Aegean Free Zone with 21 cars, including many brought from the U.S. He loved boats and often spent weekends or vacations boating in the Aegean. He enjoyed music, especially classical and Turkish music. Eight years ago, Kaya bought a vacation home in Lake Tahoe, where he enjoyed spending time with his family. He is survived by his wife, Mary; daughters Deniz (husband Derek Cressman) of Sacramento and Ayshe (Mike Anderson) of Santa Cruz; and two grandchildren, Sylvie and Peri. Both daughters graduated from Palisades High.
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