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Richard Gwinn, business owner and volunteer

Services will be held Thursday, June 23, for Richard H. Gwinn, 77, of Radnor and Vero Beach, Fla., a business owner and executive, who died Saturday, Feb. 27, of Alzheimer's disease at a hospice in Vero Beach.

Richard H. Gwinn
Richard H. GwinnRead more

Services will be held Thursday, June 23, for Richard H. Gwinn, 77, of Radnor and Vero Beach, Fla., a business owner and executive, who died Saturday, Feb. 27, of Alzheimer's disease at a hospice in Vero Beach.

Born in Atlanta to David Marshall Gwinn and Elizabeth Bechtold Gwinn, he moved with his family to Gladwyne as an infant and grew up there. He graduated from St. George's School in Middletown, R.I., and Yale University. While at Yale, he was a member of the Fence Club.

Mr. Gwinn joined the Navy's ROTC program in 1956 during his freshman year. After graduating, he was on active duty with the Navy from 1960 and 1963. His military experience instilled in Mr. Gwinn a love of the sea and sailing that continued throughout his life.

He attended the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School before joining Pennbrook Foods Co., at 27th and Lombard Streets, in 1964. He became chief executive officer of the company in 1972, and acquired Abbotts Dairies in 1981.

Beset by rising competition and falling milk subsidies, the companies filed for bankruptcy in 1984. Eventually, they were taken over by Johanna Farms, which assumed all their accounts and the right to bottle milk under the Abbotts name.

Mr. Gwinn did not stay on. Instead, he started a business buying small companies that were in distress, turning them around, and reselling them.

He served on the board of governors of Hahnemann University Hospital and the ECRI Institute in Plymouth Meeting, a nonprofit involved in research on medical devices. He also volunteered for the Citizens Democracy Corps, which helped support developing democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, a government agency that administers civilian foreign aid.

He married Brita Patten Gwinn in 1969. The couple had four children.

Their daughter, Elizabeth, was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections and progressively limits the ability to breathe.

The experience "was as challenging as it was transforming," his family said. Plucky and lively, Elizabeth Gwinn refused to be daunted by the illness and inspired those around her. She died at age 18 in February 1989.

"I don't know what we do now," her devastated father said the week after her death.

Mr. Gwinn had dedicated himself to volunteering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and had become a tireless national trustee. He served as local chapter president of the foundation for three years starting in 1984, and during his tenure, he helped triple the foundation's funding, raising $680,000 for research.

"It's a start," he said in 1987. "And I'm not about to give up until we find a cure."

Mr. Gwinn was both forthright and discreet, with elegant manners and an irreverent sense of fun. His classmates wrote in the St. George's yearbook: "Dick will always be remembered as the one to whom anybody could talk to in confidence; he left us with the feeling that, if everyone were as civil and tactful as Dick, there would be no more strife."

He enjoyed golfing, fishing, riding his bike, and acting as captain of his boat Shadowfax, which he kept on the Chesapeake Bay.

Besides his wife, he is survived by sons Christian, Ryder, and David, and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Gwinn's memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Thursday, June 23, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, 400 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor. Burial was private.

Donations may be made to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 2004 Sproul Rd., Suite 208, Broomall, Pa. 19008, or VNA Hospice House, 901 37th St., Vero Beach, Fla. 32960.

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