Stone, Ex-Corp Chief, Dead at 83

Robert Gregg Stone Jr. ’45-’47, an influential personage in University governance in his 27 years of service on the Harvard Corporation, died on Tuesday at age 83 due to complications following a stroke, the University announced yesterday.

"He just sweated for Harvard," said James R. Houghton ’58, who succeeded Stone as the Corporation’s senior fellow upon his retirement in 2002. "His death’s a real loss."

In his time on the Corporation—the University’s highest governing body—Stone served on the search committee that named Neil L. Rudenstine to be Harvard’s 26th president in 1991. And he led the panel that ultimately picked Lawrence H. Summers as its 27th.

Raising prodigious sums for the University, Stone was Harvard’s "chief cheerleader," said former University Treasurer D. Ronald Daniel, who served with him on the Corporation.

In a statement, incoming Interim President Derek C. Bok ranked Stone "among the three or four most influential people of the last 25 years in helping to shape Harvard’s constructive influence on the world."

A GOOD ‘FELLOW’

As an undergraduate, Stone concentrated in economics and was a member of the Owl Club. A Kirkland House resident, Stone captained the men’s heavyweight crew squad, setting a world record for 2,000 meters.

During World War II, Stone took a leave from Harvard to serve in the U.S. Army in the Pacific—but upon his return, he was back in Cambridge.

"He just threw himself into his Harvard experience," Daniel said. "And it never left him."

After college, Stone went on to become a top executive in the shipping industry, first as president and chairman of State Marine Lines, then as president of the Kirby Corporation, an inland tank barge operator.

And in 1975, Stone was named a fellow on the seven-member Corporation—“the greatest honor he felt he ever had,” according to his son, R. Gregg Stone III ’75.

On the Corporation, Stone’s style was “to not talk a lot, to be a good listener,” Daniel said.

Stone was “cheery,” welcoming, and “available for anyone,” said Charles P. Slichter ’45, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who served with Stone on the Corporation.

“I know people are always talking about the horrible Corporation, but...it’s quite intimate because it meets so often and you see each other so many times,” Slichter said yesterday. “You either develop warm relationships or it’s not that much fun. He was just terrific.”

Stone became the Corporation’s senior fellow in 1995, a position he held until his retirement in 2002.

Senior fellows traditionally lead presidential searches, a responsibility that prompted The Crimson to call Stone “Harvard’s kingmaker” in a 2000 article.

But Daniel, who served with Stone on the search committee, said that he led that effort in an inclusive manner, and while committed, he “didn’t try to dominate those deliberations.”

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Today, the Corporation has come under fire as secretive and insular, but Stone’s colleagues remarked yesterday that he interacted closely with undergraduates at Harvard while serving as a fellow.

In the mornings preceding Corporation meetings, Stone would often meet with undergraduates in the Faculty Club for breakfast to listen to their concerns.

“I think it was helpful to the undergraduates, but more importantly it really informed Bob about what was going on, and he really took delight in those sessions,” Houghton said in a telephone interview last night.

“He did that much more so than any of the rest of us,” Daniel said yesterday.

For those who knew Stone, the image of his meetings with undergraduates looms large in their minds.

“He wasn’t interested in just coming and sitting in a room,” Slichter said.

‘GIVE ’TIL IT FEELS GOOD’

The co-chair of the University’s record-setting $2.6 billion capital campaign—and the financier of numerous scholarships—Stone was a “legendary” fundraiser for Harvard, said Henry Rosovsky, a former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Corporation fellow.

“I don’t want you to give ’til it hurts,” Stone would tell potential donors, according to Daniel. “I want you to give ’til it feels good.”

Stone “would hear about an Arabian sheikh who had some remote connection to Harvard, and he would hop on the next plane there,” former Corporation fellow Hugh D. Calkins ’45 told The Crimson in 1995.

An avid sailor, Stone was an “extraordinary” supporter of Harvard athletics as both a donor and a fan, Harry Parker, longtime men’s heavyweight crew coach, said last night.

And at his core, Daniel said yesterday, Stone understood the University’s need to excel by attracting the best students and faculty.

“There are a lot of people in the business world who did not understand, or chose not to understand, the academy—but Bob got it,” Daniel said.

Stone is survived by his wife of 58 years, Marion Rockefeller Stone of Greenwich, Conn., as well as six children and 15 grandchildren, according to the University. A service will be held at Memorial Church on May 4.

—Staff writer Nicholas M. Ciarelli can be reached at ciarelli@fas.harvard.edu.