ROBERT FILLEY, A MAN OF BUSINESS AND HUGS, DIES

North Coast Mortgage founder Robert B. Filley loved to sail and to cook and to wrap his friends in giant hugs. But most of all, he loved to teach. Mr. Filley, who in 1996 became director of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington College of Architecture, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 61. Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, the college's former dean, described Mr. Filley as a friend "who made a career choice to give back." "He was one of those people who look for purpose in their lives," Schell said. "He made a career choice to give back. He gave up something that was financially rewarding for something more personally rewarding. To me, that said a lot about the man."

Chicago-born but schooled in Southern California, Mr. Filley brought his family to the Seattle area in 1973 to manage a series of mortgage firms. Eventually, he helped finance Kemper Freeman Jr.'s vision of a modern Bellevue Square, a venture that was "his proudest professional achievement," according to daughter Linda Filley-Bentler.

Establishing his family on Mercer Island, Mr. Filley kept up with Seattle's growth through the Mayor's Task Force on Downtown, the Westlake Advisory Commission, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Seattle Housing Resources group and the Seattle Center Advisory Commission. But he couldn't leave well enough alone, colleagues said. He had to teach. "He wanted to get real people with real work experiences to teach kids, to link real estate and investment banking with land planning and architecture in a way that made them all part of the same challenge," Schell said. "He liked the academic life, but he lived in the real world."