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Longtime trustee dies

Gardiner Dutton '53 suffered cerebral hemorrhage Sunday in Arizona

When the Board of Trustees gathers this weekend at the Old Glove Factory, one familiar face will be missing. Gardiner Dutton '53, a trustee of the college since 1970, passed away Sunday in Arizona.

Trustee Fred Little '53 was Dutton's roommate for three years at Grinnell and has stayed in contact with Dutton.

"It was a real shock to me," Little said. "We were so close." The two had attended Harvard graduate school together after Grinnell, Dutton for business and Little for law, and over the subsequent years close ties had developed between their families as well.

"Gardiner was a skinny little redheaded kid," said Little. "Enormously talented. Studies came enormously easily to him." Dutton graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Grinnell and was a Baker scholar to Harvard Business School, where he graduated second in his class.

Others came to know his intellect. Professor Emeritus Waldo Walker, Biology, met Dutton in the 1970s while Walker was Executive Vice President of the college.

"He was a very sharp and intelligent fellow," Walker said. "He had a very good business mind."

For many the best example of that sharpness was Dutton's role overseeing the college's investment in a television station in Dayton, Ohio.

"[The purchase] was Warren [Buffet]'s idea, but Gardiner did the heavy lifting," said Little. "Gardiner was a very busy executive at the time, and he came out several times a month" to oversee the station. "We purchased the station for $13 million, and sold it for $49 million. The endowment was only $20-30 million at the time, so that was huge."

Walker echoed that praise. "Taking over the station, the trustees had to have someone who was responsible to run it," he said. "That was Gardiner."

Little and Dutton has been connected even before they met. Dutton was the first recipient of a scholarship in the name of Little's father, also a graduate of the school.

"He always used to joke that he didn't get enough money," recalled Little.

-David Montgomery

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