This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 8, 2013 - That Dr. William Henry Danforth II was recognized Tuesday with the St. Louis Award hardly comes as a shocker. In our town, perhaps only Stan Musial is so revered. And Danforth's accomplishments in his field may well surpass Stan the Man's.
What many may be asking is why it took so long. The answer may lie in the man's grace and humility. For many years, Danforth sat on the committee that chose the St. Louis Award honoree.
In remarks that he prepared for accepting the award at the Danforth Plant Science Center — named for his father, Donald — William Danforth said, "I am honored but assumed that my service on the award selection committee should make me ineligible."
He did not say those words. Perhaps they seemed to him too self-referential. Friends say Danforth is the most humble man they know. Instead Danforth's address focused on feeding the world and having St. Louis be the center for making it all happen.
Remarkably understanding
The award is supposed to go to "the resident of metropolitan St. Louis, who during the preceding year, has contributed the most outstanding service for its development ... or (who) shall have performed such service as bringing greatest honor to the community," according to the late David Wohl, who established the award in 1931. The awardees are selected by a committee of prominent St. Louisans. David Kemper, who heads Commerce Bank, is the current committee chairman.
Danforth's friends and colleagues believe he has been doing that for 60 years, not just one.
"There's something about him that is remarkably understanding," said retired sales and marketing executive Newell "Jimmy" Knight, Danforth's longtime friend. "He accomplishes things and ask others to do things they might not have otherwise thought of doing. And if you are going to do something for Bill Danforth, you just want to do the best you can."
Danforth is now 86. So six decades takes us back to about the time Danforth was returning to St. Louis after serving in the Navy as a physician during the Korean War. Before that hitch, Danforth had gotten his B.A. at Princeton University, his M.D. from Harvard and had completed his internship in medicine at Barnes Hospital.
This is not a rags-to-riches story. William Henry Danforth was named for his grandfather, who did have such a story. The first William H. (1870-1955) was described in a Nestle Purina biography as a sickly farm boy who grew up "in the southeast Missouri swamp country" and was dared by his school teacher to "become the healthiest boy in the class."
From there the elder Danforth "built his life on the proposition that to live is to dare." And from that grew the founding of the Ralston Purina Co. in 1894, which he built into a giant in cereals for humans and feed for farm animals and pets. More than that, Danforth invested his time in enterprising ways in St. Louis. He created the Danforth Foundation in 1927. His son, Donald led Ralston for 30 years and also invested his time and energy in building a better St. Louis.
But William II, while adopting wholeheartedly his grandfather's philosphy, decided to chart a course in the healing arts. He joined the Washington University School of Medicine as a cardiologist. His leadership abilities were quickly recognized and he became vice chancellor for medical affairs in 1965, serving under then-chancellor Thomas Eliot.
1965: Think Vietnam. Think of roiling campuses nationwide, among which Washington University was especially prominent. As then-Post-Dispatch reporter Dale Singer wrote in 1986, back in the day "arguing with the chancellor — and anyone else in authority — was a popular campus sport."
Chan Dan
But after Eliot left, a measure of calm returned to the campus. That had something to do with what was going on in the world, but a whole lot to do with the appointment in 1971 of Danforth, who would become known among students affectionately as "Chan Dan."
Chan Dan may have been the nation's most accessible college leader. He showed up at football games and the annual Thurtene carnival. He accepted an invitation to be Santa Claus at a dorm party. More than that, he listened to student concerns and responded to them. And, if they didn't always get what they wanted, the students knew that they had gotten a respectful hearing.
At the same time, he was building the university's endowment and its reputation. "He was a fantastic moneyraiser," said long-time friend Katherine Drescher, who worked several years for Danforth as an assistant for special projects. "He had tremendous perseverance. He would go back and back to people. And, he'd say, if you can't give any money, I'll take the couch in the living room. He would say it in the nicest possible way."
In 1983, 16 years into his tenure, Danforth announced the $300 million Alliance for Washington University campaign. It concluded in 1987 with a record $630.5 million raised. "He turned Washington University from a street car college into a major world-class institution," Drescher said.
According to a university biography, Danforth by the end of his tenure had established 70 new faculty chairs, built a $1.72 billion endowment, oversaw funding and construction of dozens of new buildings and tripled the number of scholarships offered to students.
Dr. William Peck, who served under Danforth as dean of the medical school, said Danforth had "just the right touch with people. His approach was that he gave you the responsibility and he assumed you would tell him if there were any problems. And when there were, he was so wise in working with you in developing solutions. He would impart that vision to you in a low-key way so that you felt that you had ownership and authorship of it."
Danforth's reputation as a builder and problem solver grew, such that he was called upon to deal with many crises, including those with the St. Louis schools. He was among those who in the 1980s helped Max Starkloff start his nascent disability rights movement. Starkloff would become an international figure in his own right before his death two years ago.
Role model for Wrighton
Danforth's tenure as chancellor ran until 1995. His nearly quarter century heading the campus was highly unusual. The shelf life of a university president is often little more than a half dozen years.
His successor, Mark Wrighton, is now in his 18th year. A prodigious fundraiser and crackerjack administrator himself, Wrighton probably could have had his choice if he wanted to move on to another prestigious institution. One of the things that has kept him at Washington University, he says, is the sense of community that Danforth fostered. "He is a role model for me, a person who is willing to hear any point of view and deal with each person's views in a way that shows you care about their opinions and how your decision will affect them," Wrighton said.
He remembers the first time he met Danforth for an interview. What impressed him most, he said, was that Danforth didn't talk so much about what he had done, but the plans that he had set in motion. "He was preparing the way for his successor," Wrighton said.
University officials gingerly asked Wrighton if he would mind if Danforth served as board chairman and chancellor emeritus. For some that might seem daunting. But Wrighton said, "When I was interviewed, I didn't know anybody in St. Louis. I came to appreciate that Bill Danforth knew everybody."
Next Green Revolution
No doubt that helped Danforth on his next big project, the Danforth Plant Science Center. At 72 years old in 1998, Danforth was thinking about his grandchildren and other people's grandchildren — along with Peter Raven, the head of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Virgina Weldon, who had just retired as senior vice president of public policy for Monsanto Co. They met with officials at the University of Missouri and the University of Illinois to discuss how they might spawn the next great Green Revolution.
The first, as he noted, in his St. Louis Award address, was started in the '40s when Norman Borlaug, an agronomist and future Nobel laureate, and his colleagues discovered how to double and triple crop yield. Those discoveries helped end famines in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, saving an estimated 1 billion people.
But it did not end starvation. World population increased. And today, Danforth said in his remarks Tuesday, "a billion people are undernourished and, on average, a child dies of malnutrition every six seconds."
Danforth said that Weldon, Raven and increasingly others saw an opportunity not only to solve hunger, but to make St. Louis the place where the solutions could be developed. "We started at the right time before others had realized the opportunities (in plant science) and were ready to make investments. It is good to be on the ground floor and benefit as others come along."
Raven, for his part, said he loved establishing that foundation with Danforth. "He doesn't blast people with his ideas," Raven said. "He is a quiet guy, who thinks carefully about what he wants to do and why he is doing it."
Over the last 14 years, the Danforth Center has grown to be the world's largest independent nonprofit plant science reesarch organization with 175 scientists working on a variety of projects aimed at crop development and environmental sustainability.
One of those scientists is James Carrington, who was named president of Danforth Center in May 2011. He arrived from Oregon State University in Corvallis where he led the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing.
Carrington said he had not met Danforth before he interviewed for the job, but had known of Danforth as "an iconic figure." And, his first impression, "the nicest, most humble guy." Since then, the two meet frequently. Not at a country club but at Starbucks in Clayton. There, Carrington said, the elder statesman does a lot of listening but occasionally shares a bit of wisdom.
Over the years, Danforth has been known to quote great leaders, such as Churchill and Francis Bacon. The last time they met, Carrington said, Danforth handed him a piece of paper with a quotation paraphrasing Bacon, the 17th-century lawyer, philosopher, scientist, on the role of scientists in a civil society.
On Tuesday, in accepting the St. Louis Award, Danforth imparted his own wisdom about both scientists and St. Louis. "We St. Louisans are helping use bioscience to write a new chapter in human history and in the story of our community... There are no guarantees, but we see science that is organized human creativity and innovation, as the best hope of handing on a productive, healthy and livable world to our great grandkids.
"The challenge for the next generation is to make the most of our unusual opportunity to lead the world on a great and very important adventure."
As Danforth spoke, the sun was setting on the horizon outside the Danforth Center. A metaphor perhaps for an elderly gent accepting a lifetime achievement award.
But in Danforth's case not so much.
He ended his speech this way:
"Let's get to it."
Robert Duffy, associate editor of the Beacon, contributed information for this story.
William Danforth is a donor to the St. Louis Beacon.