Professor Bruce Gardner, a dairy farmer’s son who grew up to master agricultural economics, and advised three U.S. presidents on the subject, died March 14 of multiple myeloma at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. He was 67.
At the university, where he worked for 27 years, Gardner built a reputation as an astute scholar with an uncanny ability to balance the complex world economic theories with his laid-back farmer’s personality.
University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan said duality stuck with him since the day he first met Gardner. It was 1981 – the day Kirwan, then the university’s provost, hired Gardner as a professor.
“He was a person that you just liked from the first moment you met him, because he was a very warm personality,” Kirwan said. “He was a person with a towering intellect, but also very down to earth and a wonderful, gentle manner.”
Gardner rose to become the interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources from 2003 to 2005 and died as chair of the Department of Agricultural Economics.
But his accomplishments extended far beyond the sphere of academia. During the Cold War, he served on both President Gerald Ford’s and President Jimmy Carter’s Council of Economic Advisors, where he was heavily involved with economic analyses of grain trade issues with the Soviet Union. He was later was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Economics under President George H.W. Bush.
Gardner grew up on a dairy farm in Solon Mills, Ill.. He attended the University of Illinois where he graduated in 1964 with a degree in agricultural economics. In 1968, he earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago.
His daughter, Sarah De Belen, recalled her father as a curious man who encouraged her and her brother to try new things. He had varying interests from philosophy to Bach, she said, but Gardner ultimately got the greatest happiness from life’s mundane pleasures.
“He got a lot of joy out of small everyday things, like taking a walk around the block and looking at birds,” she said. “He had a very active mind. He was very curious about the world. He would talk to everyone he met.”
Gardner is survived by his wife of 43 years, Mary Ann; his daughter; his son, Matthew Gardner; two grandchildren, Max and Alex De Belen; his mother, Jeannette Gardner; and three sisters: Nancy Cole, Jane Fry and Ellen Ornberg.
Faculty, students and friends are invited to attend Dr. Gardner’s memorial service, which will be held on Friday, March 28 at 4:30 p.m. at the Memorial Chapel.
Those who would like to make a charitable donation in his honor may send donations to Washington Bach Consorts, 1220 19th Street, Northwest #300, Washington DC 20036. Please write in the memo line on the check “in memory of Dr. Bruce Gardner.” Donations may also be made online at www.bachconsort.org.
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