Gordon Spencer Myers

G. Spencer Myers, a self-described “post-war, hippie-sympathizing, eco-friendly entrepreneur” who published “eco-thriller” novels to advance the cause of ecological awareness, died peacefully on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at his home in Durham, North Carolina, surrounded by loved ones.

His resolve to live his life on his own terms allowed him to face his cancer diagnosis head-on, without fear.

Spencer devoted much of his life to environmental activism. His first novel, Pest, published in 2005, was inspired by three instances of pesticide poisoning that came to light in the 1990s. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources warned against eating game fish from Lake Michigan after they were found to have tumors. In central Florida, more than 1,000 white pelicans were found dead. And near Florida’s Lake Apopka, 90 percent of the area’s alligators died. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Food Quality Protection Act, which provided a substantial victory to chemical industry lobbyists. Animal test results were no longer the official regulatory standard for assessing cancer risk to humans.

Enter Dr. Derk Bryan, the tenacious Environmental Protection Agency investigator created by Spencer as the protagonist for three novels set in Florida, Pest, Dead Wrong (2022), and The Girl With the Red Nails (2024). In the Derk Bryan series, the investigator is called upon to solve environmental mysteries that eventually lead to unscrupulous companies and individuals willing to trade human health for quick profits. Spencer campaigned against overconsumption, and his author website includes “Dr. Derk Bryan's Top Ten Ways to Reduce Global Warming.”

“We live on a small planet, and what happens in one place these days affects what happens everywhere else,” he said in a recent speech. “We are creating record amounts of waste that is polluting our plant at an unsustainable rate. There used to be a weather-related event that caused $1 trillion in damage every four months. Now they occur every two to three weeks.”

In 2024, he published We Are Playing Roulette With Your Future, a guide to life for his grandson in the form of a memoir brimming with colorful stories of youthful arrests, tattoos, baseball games, and a motorcycle trip to the Burning Man festival. It addresses the importance of responsibility, respect, and integrity.

Spencer became a pioneer in sustainable living long before the publication of Pest. In the 1970s, amid gas shortages, he received the first Department of Interior grant to add solar panels to a residence listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the first of many homes he owned that harnessed solar energy and featured strict conservation measures. He also was an early buyer of electric vehicles and took pride in being able to say he filled his car with sunshine.

Gordon Spencer Myers was born October 16, 1945, in Alameda, California, of English, Dutch and German stock. He grew up in Hastings, Michigan, where he fished and hunted with his father, and earned a scholarship from the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1967. He later earned an MBA from Bowling Green State University. Spencer raised a family in Dayton, Ohio, working extra jobs that included managing a nighttime food cart selling egg rolls. His work included newspaper delivery, groundskeeping, lumber hauling, crime prevention analysis, banking, running a pizza and sub shop, chef at a vegetarian restaurant, managing a fitness center, founding a credit card processing business, and buying rental properties in Florida and North Carolina that he retrofitted for energy efficiency.

Spencer lived and worked in Dayton for 17 years before moving to Florida because he hated the cold. The license plate on his Harley-Davidson read SUNJNKY. Among his passions were music, poetry, storytelling, cooking, and golf. The latter two pursuits grew out of his desire to eat only healthy food and stay fit. Fruit and protein smoothies were a staple. He resolved each day to treat his body with the utmost respect, and was certified by the American College of Sports Medicine. In 2005, he founded an enterprise called The New Bill of Rights, which sought to end all government control over humans’ bodies. “I got tired of being told by my government that I’m not capable of making decisions about what I can eat, drink, or smoke, when I can have children, and whom I may marry,” Spencer wrote. “For me, to all my rights, I must allow you all of yours.”

Throughout his life, Spencer was an ardent supporter of the University of Michigan and its sports teams. An aerial photograph of “The Big House,” Michigan’s football stadium, hung on the wall of his office. He traveled to his favorite places, including Greece and Italy, wearing his Michigan baseball cap. Shortly before his death, Spencer transferred his books’ copyrights to the University of Michigan Press to support scholarships and other university programs.

He was a supporter of public radio, the use of medical marijuana, drug reform, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Spencer is survived by his wife, Barbara Horvitz, of Durham; three children, Erica Myers-Lauver of Oakwood, Ohio, Christopher Bradley Myers of Dayton, and Tinora Powell of Indianapolis; two grandchildren, Ian and Willow; a sister, Gretchen Myers of Battle Creek, Michigan; and a brother, Tim Myers, of Coloma, Michigan.

In lieu of flowers or similar gestures of sympathy, Spencer’s family suggests planting a tree in his memory by buying a seedling on your own or contacting a nonprofit such as The Arbor Day Foundation (https://shop.arborday.org/trees-in-memory). More about Spencer’s life, passions, and novels can be found at his website www.gspencermyers.com.

A Celebration of Life in Spencer's honor will be held at a later date. Friends and family wishing to express their condolences and share memories will find this obituary on legacy.com.