Bill Gridley’s memorial service was held on January 10, which would have been his 86th birthday.

William Gill Gridley, Jr. died peacefully after a brief illness Saturday, November 29 at his Norfolk home under the loving care of his family and hospice nurses and aides of the Foothills Visiting Nurses Association.

Gridley was born January 10, 1929 in New York City, the son of Elizabeth Meeker and William Gill Gridley. His two siblings, Jeanne Gridley Bangs and Henry Meeker Gridley, predeceased him. His wife of 60 years, Barbara G. Gridley, their children, Katharine Mead Gridley and her husband John Barstow, William Winslow Gridley and his wife Mary Heller Gridley, four grandchildren and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins survive him.

An investment banker by profession, Gridley began his career in 1953 at Chase Manhattan Bank, where he worked for 18 years before moving to American Express International Bank, where he was among the first western bankers to do business in China.

In 1979, he went on to become president of Crescent Diversified Ltd. and Competrol BVI, the United States investment vehicles of the Olayan Group. He then served as president of Brandywine Investors Inc., an investment management firm that he founded. Gridley served as Chief Financial Officer, then President and Chief Executive Officer of HYMEDIX Inc. and as director of Lifestream Technologies, two health care start-ups.

After retiring from a career in investment, he taught world geography at the Horace Mann School. Gridley had many other interests and passions including art, literature, music, geography, a love of the outdoors and science. An ardent supporter of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, he served as vice chairman on the board of Tuskegee University in Alabama for more than 30 years, and received an honorary degree from the university.

In the early 1960s he helped found the Episcopal School in Manhattan, and from 1967 to 1974 served as treasurer on the board of the Berkshire Boy Choir. Later, he was on the boards of the Berkshire Choral Institute, the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund and the Leopold Schepp Foundation. Most recently, he served on the board of Norfolk Now and, for 20 years, on the board of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate.

Gridley grew up in Manhattan and Locust, New Jersey. He attended the St. Bernard’s School in Manhattan, Phillips Exeter Academy and was a 1951 graduate of Yale University. He then served for two years in the U.S. Army as a corporal in Germany. Gridley married Barbara Dean Gueinzius in 1954 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The couple raised their children, Kate and Billy, in New York City and Norfolk.

A memorial service was held January 10 at the Church of Christ Congregational. Memorial donations in his name may be made to The Norfolk Music Shed Restoration Fund of The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, PO Box 208246, New Haven, CT 06520, or to the Leopold Schepp Foundation, www.scheppfoundation.org/wp/giving.

Photo courtesy of the Gridley family.