Alexander Buel Trowbridge, Jr. – First Lieutenant, United States Marine Corps

by

Government Official

The Honorable Alexander B. Trowbridge

Mr. Trowbridge became president of Trowbridge Partners, Inc. in 1990, following his ten-year tenure as president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Before joining NAM, he served as vice chairman of Allied Chemical Corporation. In 1967 and 1968, Major Trowbridge served as Secretary of Commerce in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Mr. Trowbridge graduated cum laude from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs in 1951. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U. S. Marine Corps and served in Korea as an infantry platoon leader with lst Battalion, 5th Marines, and as a tactical air observer with VMO-6.

Mr. Trowbridge serves on the boards of Waste Management, Inc., Harris Corporation, the Gillette Company, the Rouse Company and Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the original board of trustees of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College Foundation in 1980.

He and his wife, Ellie, reside in Washington, D. C.

Commerce Chief Alexander B. Trowbridge

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Alexander B. “Sandy” Trowbridge, 76, a Commerce Secretary during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration who spent a decade as president of the National Association of Manufacturers, an influential trade group, died April 27, 2006, at his home in Washington. He had Lewy body disease, a degenerative brain disorder.

Mr. Trowbridge held executive positions with Esso Standard Oil before joining the Commerce Department in 1965 as assistant secretary for domestic and international business. He was commerce secretary in 1967 and 1968, succeeding John T. Connor.

Connor, who became chairman of Allied Chemical Corp., recruited Mr. Trowbridge to the corporate giant as vice chairman and heir apparent in the mid-1970s. At the time, Mr. Trowbridge was president of the Conference Board, a New York-based consumer research organization.

At Allied, Mr. Trowbridge played a major role in planning the response to a massive lawsuit arising from the company’s illegal dumping of Kepone, an ingredient used in pesticides, into Virginia’s James River. The dumping occurred before Mr. Trowbridge’s arrival at Allied, but he was instrumental in devising a settlement of more than $5 million and millions more for a state environmental fund.

A skilled lobbyist, he was nonetheless overlooked in 1979 for the chairmanship. In part, he was said to lack a thoroughly aggressive demeanor at a time when the company was smarting from continued lawsuits over the Kepone spill, a noticeable decline in profits and strikes affecting some of the operations.

“My hopes were to be chairman,” Mr. Trowbridge told Fortune magazine at the time. “But the board did not feel I had the operating and financial experience.”

In 1980, he became president of the Washington-based National Association of Manufacturers, where he was regarded as a low-key leader of the conservative organization. He was largely involved in fundraising efforts but also spoke out about tax reform and deficit reduction.

While with the organization, he also sat on the National Commission on Social Security Reform and was board chairman of Hutzler Brothers Co., a now-defunct Baltimore-based department store chain. His second wife was the widow of the store’s onetime president.

Alexander Buel Trowbridge Jr. was born in Englewood, New Jersey, on December 12, 1929. He was a graduate of Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, and of Princeton University.

He was a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and was a recipient of the Bronze Star. He also served briefly in the Central Intelligence Agency before starting a career in the petroleum industry.

After resigning from the manufacturers’ association, he founded a business consulting firm. He also sat on several corporate boards, including with Gillette Co., New England Mutual Life Insurance Co., Waste Management Inc., Sunoco and Harris Corp.

He was a trustee of the Marine Corps University Foundation and the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization that conducts seminars and policy programs.

His marriage to Nancey Horst Trowbridge ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 25 years, Eleanor Kann Hutzler “Ellie” Trowbridge of Washington; three children from his first marriage, Stephen C. Trowbridge of Dallas, Corrin S. Trowbridge of Redwood City, Calif., and Kimberly Parent of Greenwich, Conn.; two stepchildren, Barbara Verdaguer of Mousterlin, France, and Charles Hutzler of Beijing; a sister, Julie Cullen of Brooklin, Maine; a stepsister, Joya Cox of McLean; and nine grandchildren.

TROWBRIDGE, ALEXANDER B

On Thursday, April 27, 2006, of Washington, DC. He is survived by his wife Eleanor Kann Hutzler Trowbridge; a sister Julie Cullen of Brooklin, Maine; a stepsister Joya Cox of McLean, Virginia; three children from his first marriage, Stephen Chamberlain Trowbridge of Dallas, Texas, Corrin Scott Trowbridge of Redwood City, California, Kimberly Trowbridge Parent of Greenwich, Connecticut; two stepchildren, Barbara Verdaguer of Mousterlin, France, Charles Hutzler of Beijing, China; and nine grandchildren.

On Sunday April 30 and Monday, May 1, friends may visit with the family at home between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Interment at Arlington National Cemetery will be private. Friends and relatives are invited to celebrate his life at a memorial service and reception on Thursday, May 25, 2006 at 11 a.m. at Washington National Cathedral, Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, N.W. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, The World Wildlife Fund or The Marine Corps University Foundation.

TROWBRIDGE, ALEXANDER B
MAJ   US MARINE CORPS

  • DATE OF BIRTH: 12/12/1929
  • DATE OF DEATH: 04/27/2006
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 8-N3  ROW 12  SITE 5
  • ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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