Robert H.B. Baldwin, former chairman and president of Morgan Stanley & Co and Under Secretary of the Navy, died January 3 of pneumonia. He was 95. He was a resident of Hobe Sound, Florida, had a home in Princeton, New Jersey, and had family ties in Bridgehampton.
Mr. Baldwin was both witness to and agent of enormous transitions on Wall Street during his 37-year career, which was interrupted only by his service as Under Secretary of the Navy from 1965 to 1967. He started at Morgan Stanley in 1946, and was named partner in 1958. During much of his career Morgan Stanley’s business was focused entirely on advising and raising capital for corporations, relying on other firms to distribute the clients’ securities. In 1971 Mr. Baldwin became president, and presided over the launch of a sales and trading business. Under his leadership, the firm also added investment research, private wealth management and launched the industry’s first dedicated mergers and acquisitions department. He was promoted to chairman in 1979, and retired from the firm in 1983; at that time, Robert E. Linton, chairman of the Securities Industry Association, Wall Street’s leading trade group, said of Mr. Baldwin, “He represented all the things that Morgan Stanley stood for, yet was modern enough to compete in the new world.”
Very active in industry affairs, Mr. Baldwin served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange from 1974 to 1977 and then was chairman of the Security Industries Association starting in 1977.
Mr. Baldwin’s many philanthropic endeavors included the Presbyterian Hospital of New York, where he was a trustee from 1973 until his death. In the early 1980s, he chaired a highly successful capital campaign resulting in the building of the Allen Pavilion. In addition, he was particularly proud of supporting a small project on the Lower East Side of New York, started by two dedicated social reformers led by William Milliken. Dedicated to tackling the high dropout rate of underserved youth, the project, now called Communities in Schools, has grown to have locations in 26 states, serving 1.5 million elementary, middle and high school students through 164 affiliates. Its proven model positions site coordinators inside schools to assess students’ needs and provide resources to help them succeed in the classroom and in life, and it is the nation’s largest and most effective organization dedicated to keeping kids in school. He was also active on the board of the Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge Foundation in Morristown, New Jersey, having been a founding board member in 1974, and serving as president and chief executive officer from 1987 to 1990, and chairman from 1990 to 2000. Over the 30 years that he served on the Dodge Board, its assets grew from $60 million to $288 million and over this period the foundation awarded 9,700 grants totaling $301 million.
Mr. Baldwin served on two presidential commissions, and during his stint as Under Secretary of the Navy he made two trips to Vietnam. At the end of his first trip in 1965, he recommended the Navy use containers for its shipments to the area. After pursuing the idea for 18 months, the first containerized ship arrived in Vietnam in 1967, his last day of office. It was estimated that containerization reduced theft and spoilage sufficiently to save the government from $12 billion to $18 billion.
Mr. Baldwin was born in East Orange, New Jersey, on July 9, 1920. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, cum laude, in 1938 and from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1942. While at Princeton, he was awarded letters in football, basketball and baseball and was winner of the William Winston Roper Cup in 1942, the highest honor for a student-athlete at Princeton. After graduation, Mr. Baldwin volunteered for service in the Navy and graduated from Officer’s Training School in December 1942. He remained on active duty until April 1946. He joined Morgan Stanley that month.
Mr. Baldwin is survived by his wife of 34 years, Dorothy Tobin Baldwin; five children from his previous marriage to Geraldine Williams Baldwin, Janet K. Baldwin of Manhattan, Deborah Baldwin Fall of Chappaqua, Robert H.B. Baldwin Jr. of New Jersey, Whitney H. Baldwin of Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth Baldwin Maushardt of California; two stepchildren, Mary A. Hack of Connecticut, and W. Dillaway Ayres Jr. of Glen Cove; and 13 grandchildren.
A memorial service was held at the Princeton University Chapel on January 9. He will be buried in the family plot in Bridgehampton.
Memorial donations may be made to the National Office of Communities in Schools, www.communitiesinschools.org/donate.
Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home in Princeton.
on Jan 12, 2016