Page 6 - Newsletter_Winter_2020

Spotlight on Alumni

By Linda Leavitt St. Peter, ’60 and Terry St. Peter, ‘60

David Lawrence

Class of 1960

David W. Lawrence, ’60, has had a lifelong passion for flying ever since he was a student at Houlton High School –and before.
He got his pilot’s license as soon as he was of legal age and his career included being a flight officer with the Navy’s Hurricane
Hunter Squadron among many other naval and civilian positions. After completing 30 years of service as an active and reserve
naval officer, he retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain. He remains an avid pilot.

But that’s not the only thing in David’s career. He has been the Vice President and Executive Director of the Miami University
Foundation, Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, plus, the Chief Development officer of the Mayo Foundation for the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and President of the Northwestern Memorial Foundation in Chicago. At the Mayo
foundation, the program under his leadership grew from cash receipts of $11.4 million to more than $100 million annually.
Later, he also founded his own private consulting company, “The Lawrence Group”, in which he remains active.

How did he get started as a pilot so young? “With my Dad’s aviation company at the (Houlton) airport, I was most fortunate
to have such access,” Dave says. “A kid in a candy store,” he emphasized. He noted he is now in his 63rd year of flying, perhaps
even a bit longer but he doesn’t want to talk about his years before he had his legal license. He recalls delivering a corpse at 17
to Bativia, N.Y. but not being able to do any commercial flying until age 18, his father went along to make it legal.

Although Dave spent most of his adult life outside of Maine, he is now back in Maine in Newcastle. He and his wife, Susan,
formerly of Augusta, chose to return to Maine after 42 years away. “We were not ‘from away,’” he says, “we had just ‘been away’
at college and work.” He says the couple chose to return to Maine “for the values of its people, its beauty, and its quality of
life.” In Maine, he created a consulting firm, with which he is involved to the present day.

"It was a great place," He recalls his years at HHS fondly. "It was a great place,” he
says; “big enough to have lots of different opportunities, small
enough to know everybody.” He was involved in a variety of
activities: music (band and chorus), sports, drama production,
debating club, and so on. He remembers English teacher Helen Rich (“a taskmaster in English—greatly appreciated her rigor
when taking Honors English in college”), Paul Porter for his coaching of Dave’s debating team which had a lifetime impact—
“not so much for his geometry class,” Dave quipped-- and Guidance Counselor Robert Poulin, who encouraged him to apply
for the Navy ROTC scholarship which paid for much of his college costs and led to 30 years of Navy active and reserve duty.

We recalled that, during his junior year at HHS, he was chosen to attend Dirigo Boys State and ran for governor of the state.
“That was a heady experience,” he replied. “I was persuaded to be the Federalist Party candidate and enjoyed the political
competition.” His opponent in the Nationalist Party was a “classy guy” from Yarmouth High school who won the contest with
greater representation from southern Maine at the multi-day session.

However, his experience helped him the following year, when as a senior, he was elected Maine’s Youth Governor through the
high school YMCA program, He recalls he delivered his inaugural address at the state house in Augusta and that “satisfied any
political itch I had…”

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