Deceased December 16, 2013

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50th Reunion Book Entry

In Memory

George Latimer Shinn, Class of 1945 and a long-serving Amherst Trustee, died in Scarborough, Maine, December 16, 2013.

George interrupted his Amherst studies to serve in the Marine Corp as a naval aviator during World War II. He returned to Amherst at war’s end, graduating as an English major in 1948. He met his future wife Sammie, a Mount Holyoke student, on a blind date, and they married in 1949.

George entered the training program at Merrill Lynch in Boston in 1948. He stayed with Merrill for 27 years, working his way up to the position of President and COO in New York. In 1975 he was recruited to head the First Boston Corporation (later Credit Suisse), acting as Chairman and CEO.

In 1983, at age 60, he surprised the Wall Street community by retiring from First Boston and going back to school. He earned his Ph.D. from Drew University, focusing in American Intellectual History. In the 1990s he taught investment banking seminars at Columbia University and American literature courses at Drew University.

George remained devoted to Amherst College throughout his life and was a Trustee for 15 years. While acting as Board Chairman, he championed the controversial switch to coeducation for the all-male college in 1975. Among his many other professional affiliations, he was a member of the board of The New York Stock Exchange, The New York Times, the New York Philharmonic and the National Council for the Humanities.

His business associates will remember George as a dynamic individual, usually sporting a bow tie and working at his stand-up desk. He was an old-school gentleman who had an uncanny ability to remember everyone’s name. To his friends and family he was always ready with a joke or a crazy scheme for fun. He loved playing his bagpipes and his tin whistle. Some of his favorite activities were playing tennis, skiing, sailing along the coast of Maine and piloting his own planes.

A memorial service is planned for the spring.

Deborah Shinn

50th Reunion 

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A version of an old child's verse goes: "Roses are nifty, violets are
fine, If you show me yours, I'll show you mine!" - - perhaps the best reason for this reunion literary exercise. Sammie and I are waist-deep in boxes and misplaced personal items having just moved from warm friendly old home of 30 years to a new nearby condo - analogous to emptying a five gallon bucket into a quart bottle. Have decided to have our N.Y. area pied a terre here in Morristown and gradually spend more time at our Manchester, Vermont home.

Finally got my Ph.D. two years ago and have done some teaching at nearby Drew U. (19th century cultural history). Needless to say, I have probably benefited more than my students. Next year, will trigger some retirements from corp. boards, so recent months have involved a gradual transition into some new consulting assignments and some continuing trust work. I particularly enjoy being involved with a medical science foundation whose purpose is to support research in molecular biology. With only a cursory understanding of the science, I try to help stretch our endowment out until 1997 when the trust by deed has to dissolve. The source of the latter is the original family that owned Calumet Farms back in its glory days in racing and some valuable Texas oil and gas properties.

Our children and grandchildren all live in the northeast: Deborah a curator of decorative arts at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, N.Y.; Sarah a S.V.P. at Sothebys as head of the appraisal dept.; Martha in Warren, R.I. a landscape architect with artist husband Todd on faculty of Rhode Island School of Design; Amy living in our condo near Prouts Neck on Maine coast near Portland taking courses at the U. of Southern Me.; and Andrew (Amherst ' 85) running his own small computer software co. out of an ancient farm house in Pawlet, Vermont. All are well and great fun to be with on as many occasions as possible.