By TIM KELLY
Family, friends and professional colleagues in Ocean City and his adopted hometown of Philadelphia are mourning the loss of Greg Browne, 53, who passed away Wednesday following a courageous battle with cancer.
The term “renaissance man” isn’t used very often these days, yet it certainly applies to Greg Browne.
Athlete, Ocean City lifeguard, surfer, pilot of banner planes, private Lear jets and commercial jetliners, animal lover and advocate, TV news anchor and reporter, Philly firefighter and paramedic, and of course loving husband and dear friend – Greg Browne was all of that and more.
“It’s very sad,” said Fred Miller, a fellow retired OCBP member who was also a neighbor to Greg’s late parents who lived on Gull Road, where Greg grew up.
“He had that personality. As a lifeguard he was just a picture of what a beach guard is supposed to be,” Miller remarked. “More importantly, he was a great people person.”
Thoughts, reminiscences and stories flowed this week on Browne’s Facebook page, where Greg frankly and sometimes humorously chronicled his journey fighting his illness.
From Greg’s initial diagnosis with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma right up until he was escorted out of Thomas Jefferson University Medical Center by a large group of his firefighter/paramedic “brothers” just before the holidays, Greg put it all out there.
Browne leaves behind wife Amy Brenholts, devoted pooches Angie and Axis and too many friends to count. He was predeceased by his father Robert and mother Lillian.
“Hard to believe we lost a guy that at times seemed invincible,” Greg’s Philly Fire Department partner Noah Turkewitz posted. “A warrior to the very end.”
Turkewitz was quick to point out Browne’s knack for using humor to defuse the most difficult moments on the street was a big key to getting through the job and ultimately helping people.
To Greg, “everything was ‘ambiguous’…and ‘incredulous’ worked its way into a conversation at least twice a day,” Noah recalled. “Greg’s phrasing and spot-on observations had a way of making you roll with laughter after even the most serious situations.”
As a youngster, Greg served as an altar boy at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic church.
Brown’s verbal gifts reflected his education at Holy Spirit High School, where he played football, rowed on the crew team and was a founding member of the surf team before graduating in 1985. He then went on to the University of Miami and Stockton University from which he graduated in 1990.
Greg’s gift for gab was further polished from his years as a reporter, camera man, weather forecaster and anchor for the now-defunct local news operation at NBC 40 in Northfield.
Ben Parsons, now a photojournalist for CNN out of its New York office, fondly remembers his days chasing local stories big and small with Browne.
“It didn’t feel like work. It felt like hanging out with a really cool buddy,” Parsons remarked. “We had a lot of fun, though it never came at the expense of his professionalism. He did the job and did it well. He just enjoyed it so much.”
Parsons said Browne was generous sharing experience and wisdom new hires at the station, many of whom came straight out of college.
“We were the little station that could,” he said of the local news team. “Greg would go on the air then go out and shoot video for a story and then come back and (edit) tape. He was such a jack of all trades. He knew his way around the camera, editing room and a crime scene.”
Laughing, he recalled Browne damaging a TV 40 news van driving through high water as the pair covered flooding in Sea Isle City. “It was a few days before that van dried out,” he said, and added they came back with dramatic video.
He also recalled being with Greg as the first and only media on the scene of a Garden State Parkway crash that seriously injured then- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. The highway was closed off and Parsons shot the only video of the governor being airlifted out.
Growing up in Ocean City and having extensive contacts in and around Atlantic City helped Browne put stories on the air with an authoritative tone, Parsons said. “That local background really came through in Greg’s stories and gave our news operation a lot of credibility.”
His best professional attribute, Parson recalled, was Greg’s “ability to make people feel comfortable, many times not on their best day. TV news can be pretty intrusive. Greg could make people feel at ease. He did it by talking to them like a normal person. He connected with people.”
It was during his time working in TV news that Greg met future wife Brenholts, a competing news producer at Philadelphia’s 6-ABC.
“They were such a cute, fun couple who loved their dogs,” said Maddy Vitale, an OCNJDaily writer who knew them both from her days working at The Press of Atlantic City. “Greg was an awesome guy, professional, funny and talented.”
Browne was forced to look for other career options when TV 40 began cutting staff for financial reasons and eventually lost its affiliation with the network and shut down the news operation altogether.
He moved to Philly, completed paramedic school at Jefferson and was accepted into the Fire Academy and graduated as a firefighter-paramedic.
Parsons said none of his former TV colleagues were surprised that Greg would take on such a challenge.
“Everyone said that was so much like Greg,” Parsons said. “He liked being in the middle of the action and he liked helping people.”
As a younger man, Browne’s love of flying resulted in another professional direction. He obtained a license and became a pilot of the advertising banner planes that fly over South Jersey beaches.
He moved on and graduated to Learjets and commuter passenger jets for U.S. Airways.
“I’ve never met anyone in my life with such a diverse career path,” Parsons said. “Here I was fresh out of college, trying to break into the business and here is this guy stories about flying jet planes.”
On the Beach Patrol, Browne worked for years at 14th Street, Miller said.
“That is a hard beach because it’s a wide stretch of sand and it’s very popular. There are a lot of people to watch over on that beach. Greg could handle it,” he noted. “He commanded respect and had a presence, but he was very nice to people and they loved his style. Greg considered himself an OCBP lifeguard for life.”
He was also a key member of the OCBP’s champion caliber teams in South Jersey and state lifeguard competitions.
During the summer of 2018, Browne received the stunning diagnosis he had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, one of the most common forms of blood cancer, and often among the most challenging to treat.
Despite the news, Browne always maintained a positive attitude, did not complain and “never lost his sense of self,” one friend posted. He became encouraged when his tests and scans showed marked improvement after his initial treatments at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in New York.
Buoyed by the encouraging development, Greg happily returned to spending time with Amy, lifting weights, playing with his beloved dogs and looking forward to returning to his job at Philly’s Ladder 5/Medic 35 headquarters in North Philly.
Then, devastating word came from his doctors in July that the disease had returned.
Despite the setback, which included painful new rounds of chemo, a donor drive to find a match for a planned bone marrow and stem cell transplant, lymphatic surgery and several days in a coma, Greg called the donor drive “humbling” and said he was “very optimistic” about his prospects for recovery.
He was released from the hospital in time to celebrate Thanksgiving at home and again on December 11 for the Christmas holidays, the latter instance with an escort from about a dozen fellow firefighter and paramedic “brothers.”
Some of this time was spent in Ocean City.
In the morning hours of January 2, Amy posted “with overwhelming sadness and heartbreak” that Greg had passed away. Her husband “truly appreciated all the words of support and all the prayers,” she told friends.
One such person wrote on the Facebook page: “You fought the good fight and you suffered too much. Rest easy, and please look over the rest of us.”
Services for Greg Browne: A viewing will take place on Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, 242 South 20th Street in Philadelphia.
Friends may also call at the Church on Thursday from 10:30 until noon, followed immediately by a funeral Mass.
Interment is private. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Local 22 Widows Fund, Philadelphia Firefighters and Paramedics Union Local 22, 415 North 5th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19123.
