It’s not every day — or ever, for that matter — that the Georgia Tech Foundation receives a single donation of $100 million to manage for Georgia Tech. But then, John Durstine wasn’t your everyday donor.
Back on Sept. 4, Tech President Ángel Cabrera announced that the Alabama-born 1957 graduate in mechanical engineering (with honors) posthumously gifted the jaw-dropping sum to establish faculty endowments and awards within the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
“We are immensely grateful for Mr. Durstine’s extraordinary act of generosity,” said Foundation President Al Trujillo. “It will not only boost what’s possible for mechanical engineering at Tech but will potentially redefine higher ed philanthropy.”
But outside of the big basics, because Durstine was an incredibly private man, little else was known. Why wasn’t the beneficiary of his kindness a family member or his favorite charity? Or, why not split the gift with his other university alma mater, Harvard, where he earned his MBA?
Dawn Schluter, based in Michigan, where Durstine lived until his Feb. 20 passing, was his estate planning attorney. With her firm not only specializing in trust and estate matters but offering care coordination, too, Schluter and her team served as his professional family, handling matters such as assisting him with reviewing
his investment statements and overseeing his caregiving arrangements. This led to a deep bond between Durstine and Schluter and her team.
“We became his family,” said Schulter. “He was alone in the world, but he built a professional family around him. And I was the quarterback of his professional family.”
Deliberate in All Dealings, Private by Design
According to Schluter, Durstine was very intentional about his every move: “Everything about him was always deliberate and quite planned out. He spent lots of time thinking judiciously,” she said, pointing out that when she suggested disclosing to Tech that he’d made the Institute sole beneficiary of his estate (following his only sibling’s death), he was adamant that it remain a secret.
“’They’ll find out when they find out,’ he’d tell me,” Schluter said.
Stating that Durstine never offered a reason for the secrecy, Schluter, who knew him for over 25 years, supposes that he wanted to be private about it “but still be heroic — but not till after he was gone; he just didn’t want the attention while he was alive.”
Jamie Oldham, a close member of Durstine’s professional team, agrees that being in the limelight was simply not in his nature.
“He was very humble and did not like being the center of attention — ever,” said Oldham.
But the weight that came along
with that privacy priority was borne beyond Durstine. William Wepfer, professor emeritus and former chair of the Woodruff School, tells the tale of how he had to dutifully suppress knowledge of this headline-making news for more than 10 years. He and Ann Dibble, retired Gift Planning director, were among those at Tech entrusted with nurturing connections with the 2014 College of Engineering Hall of Fame alumnus.
It was a lunch meeting they all had around 2010 that was unforgettable.
“One of the last meetings we had with him, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘You know, my estate is worth at least $10 million [at the time], but if you tell anybody and it gets back to me, I’m cutting Tech out.’ So only Ann and I heard that. And you know, I had all sorts of people asking, ‘Well, what did he say?’ And I just had to tell them, ‘I can’t share.’”
And as far as why Tech was the chosen recipient of his bounty, he never explicitly explained, but Durstine never married or had children. And while his younger sister was initially listed as beneficiary, she had predeceased him.
A Life Well Lived
According to Oldham, who visited Durstine weekly in the four years before he died, “He poured his heart into his career.”
That career spanned more than 30 years at Ford Motor Company. He began there in 1962 as a trainee and moved through the ranks, shaping truck design, powertrain strategy, and advanced systems engineering.
Though he enjoyed a brilliant career at Ford, retirement didn’t mark the end of Durstine’s own brilliance. According to Schluter, his wealth accumulation actually accelerated after retirement.
“Investing was his passion, and he was clearly exceptional at it. But if you met him, you’d never guess he’d amassed such wealth,” she recalled. “He was understated in all aspects of his life — except his brilliance; he was unbelievably smart.”
Beyond his investing acuity, and, of course, his engineering prowess, Durstine demonstrated his sharpness well into his late 70s, enrolling then
in community college to keep up
with technology.
“John never wanted to stop learning,” said Oldham, providing a clear clue as to why he was so committed to enriching others through education.
In addition to that, Schluter believes that his deep appreciation for his Georgia Tech professors — whom he credited with sparking his successful career — inspired him to bequeath his estate to the Institute, with the specific directive that the funds support faculty-related initiatives.
“I know for certain that’s what he wanted,” said Schluter. “Faculty made all the difference to him.”
And for Schluter and her team, Durstine made all the difference to them:
“He was just as lovely as the day is long, and I know his entire professional family feels truly blessed to have served him,” said Schluter. “He lived life on his own terms. And where he needed help, he made a plan. A life well lived. May we all be so lucky.”