Born in Baltimore and raised on Lombardy Place, he spent his summers at Ocean City's Plimhimmon Hotel, a landmark founded in 1894 by his great-grandmother, Rosalie Tilghman Shreve, on Second Street at the Boardwalk. Family members said that as a teenager he ran the hotel's switchboard and began a lifelong interest in communications.
His mother, Dorsey Shreve Waxter, ran the dining room, and his aunt, Rosalie Tilghman Willcox, ran the business. His father, William D. Waxter Jr., was president of the Susquehanna Ice Co., a wholesale business.
"My father was a great body surfer," said his daughter, Susan G. Waxter of Baltimore. "He talked of having his best weekend of body surfing during the 1940 Labor Day weekend right after a storm."
Family members said he also had many friends in Baltimore in rival groups, boys and girls from Lombardy Place and their counterparts on nearby St. George's Road in Roland Park. His daughter said he recalled selling snowballs at Roland and Belvedere avenues and throwing cherry bombs in the otherwise quiet neighborhood.
"We had a snowball stand on wheels that we took around the neighborhood," said his brother, Arthur L.S. Waxter of Easton. "But we used the profits to buy fireworks."
After attending Roland Park Public School from 1930 to 1939, he graduated from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va.
His began studies at Yale University before joining the Army during World War II. He was assigned to a Signal Corps battalion formed in New Jersey in 1943. He set up telephones and other communications in England, France and Germany. He was stationed in Mannheim, Germany, at the time of the German surrender. He was then immediately assigned to the Pacific and was on a troop ship at the time of the Japanese surrender. He sailed from Europe to the Pacific via the Panama Canal.
"He celebrated his 21st birthday on that ship," his daughter said.
He remained in the Army Reserves and was called back to service in the Korean War. He was a communications officer and paymaster in Japan and Korea.
Mr. Waxter earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Yale in 1948. He also studied electrical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. In the late 1940s, he was an industrial engineer at the Domino Sugar plant in Locust Point.
Mr. Waxter worked for the Johns Hopkins University's administration at its Homewood campus in the 1950s and reviewed government contracts. In 1957, he joined the T. Rowe Price investment firm as a securities analyst and went on to became a chartered financial analyst. He also served briefly in the trust department at the old Maryland National Bank in the late 1960s and returned to T. Rowe Price, from which he retired in 1984.
"He realized later that communications was a theme in all his jobs," said his daughter. "He was involved in communications in the Army, and his last job at T. Rowe Price involved managing facilities, the company's moves, its physical plant expansion and phone systems."
After he retired, Mr. Waxter became an active volunteer. He joined Genesis Jobs, Preservation Maryland, the Irvine Nature Center in Stevenson and the board of the old Hannah More School. He was also active with Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and with Sweet Briar College's Environmental Studies Forum.
In his free time, Mr. Waxter played tennis and golf at the Elkridge Club. He vacationed in New England and was a member of the 4,000-Footer Club. His daughter said he completed climbing numerous White Mountain peaks over 4,000 feet.
"We hiked mountains in the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, New Hampshire and North Carolina," said Susan Waxter, a Baltimore County Public Library data analyst. "We did trips together as a family."
A world traveler, he hiked at Mount Blanc in France and played golf in Australia and New Zealand, as well as at St. Andrews in Scotland.
In 2002, he was inducted into the Society of the Cincinnati as a descendant of Tench Tilghman, an aide to George Washington. He was a Society of Colonial Wars member.
Mr. Waxter was a fan of British television shows, including "As Time Goes By" and "Rumpole of the Bailey."
Services will be at 1 p.m. March 3 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 811 Cathedral St., where he was a member and treasurer for 40 years and served on its vestry.
In addition to his daughter and brother, survivors include a son, Peter W. Waxter of Baltimore; and a grandson. His wife of 62 years, the former Julia Reaney Baldwin, a Bryn Mawr School science teacher, died in 2012.