Maria Faviana Blase's Obituary
On Saturday, July 16, 2022, Maria Faviana Blase, of Cornelius, NC, formerly, Miami Beach, FL, passed away after a brief and unexpected illness, with family and her closest friends at her side.
Born in Argentina and raised in Las Vegas, NV, Maria Faviana graduated from Faith Lutheran High School as class valedictorian and where she was voted most-likely to succeed. She then went to Christ College in Irvine, CA, where she met the love of her life and future husband Gary Blase. After the couple moved to St. Louis, Maria continued her studies in theater and accounting at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, where she participated in several theater productions. While in St. Louis, she was a very active board member of Hotcity Theatre Company, where she met some of her best friends. Although her career was in Business, she derived much of her creative energy from the arts. She was a voracious reader, loved musicals, and her travels abroad and within the US always included visits to museums and art galleries.
After completing her MBA, she was hired by KPMG, where she worked in public accounting. Soon after she and her young family spent two years in Buenos Aires, on an international rotation. This international experience –and the fact that she was fluent in both English and Spanish and had a working knowledge of Portuguese¬-- launched her professional career. Maria went on to have a long and distinguished career in climate solutions and industrial technologies, where she cherished her time as President of Climate Solutions Latin America. During the last several years she relished serving on the Board of Winnebago Industries.
Maria often said that her most lasting professional accomplishment was the mentoring of the men and women who made up the various teams she trained and nurtured. The outpouring of condolences from past and recent work associates who claim she had a profound impact on their lives has been source of comfort to her family.
Her proudest accomplishment and greatest source of joy was her family, and she was the magnet around which both immediate and extended family gravitated. She organized nearly all family events and was such a fun-loving dynamo that not only her children, but her nieces, nephews, and more recently their own children, couldn’t wait to be with aunt Favi, while the adults marveled at her ability to keep everyone fed and entertained from morning till well past midnight.
She left us much too soon, but her intelligence, wit, humor and kindness radiate in all those who survive her: Gary Blase, her loving husband, her son Gary Alexander Blase and daughter Margerite Victoria Niebylski Blase, her brother, Victor J. Niebylski, sisters Dianna and Jackie Niebylski, and her mother Aurelia Niebylski. She was preceded in death by her father H. Victor Niebylski.
In lieu of flowers please send donations to
https://www.adajenkins.org/
Her services will be private.
James Funeral Home of Huntersville is serving the family.
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