It isn’t all that shocking that Larry Culp, Washington College’s chair of the school’s Board of Visitors and Governors, would talk enthusiastically about the long-term future of the liberal arts college or the town where it has resided for 238 years. Governing board leaders, particularly those who are graduates of those institutions like Larry at WC (class of 1985) are instinctively optimistic about the institutions they lead as well as the municipalities where they are located. It is almost a part of the job description for such positions.
But what is not in the job description, particularly in the case of Washington College and Chestertown, is how much Culp has not only “talked the talk” but made substantial investments in both the school and the town to show his confidence in both; a “doubling down” on the two places he loves the most as well as a conviction that they can not only successfully recover from Great Recession but be in a real position to thrive in the years ahead.
Culp has the background to support those aspirations through a career that eventually led him to become president of Danaher Corporation at the age of 38, ranked 144 on the Fortune 500 and be listed on the Harvard Business Review’s top 50 best-performing CEOs list. Now a visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School (HBS), a board member of General Electric, T. Rowe Price, and Wake Forest University, Culp continues to maintain his interest in leadership and the ultimate question of what makes good companies and good schools.
And all of these experiences, including the use of HBS’s famed “case method” (Culp is an alum of HBS) and Danaher’s acquisitions of dozens of companies during his twenty-year tenure, has led Culp to a unique understanding and appreciation of what he calls “high performing” institutions, whether they be high tech corporations or small liberal arts colleges.
It is this familiarity with what makes a company/school successful that has turned Culp into a significant philanthropist for Washington College and Chestertown. Larry and his family have made numerous million-dollar contributions to WC since joining the College’s board, with such diverse donations as the school’s scholarship endowment, the establishment a chair in WC’s psychology department, or more recently, the funding of the school’s “Food Lab” in downtown Chestertown.
These investments, however, have not stopped at the property lines of the College. In recent years, the Culp family has quietly made significant commitments to the Sultana Education Foundation and other nonprofit organizations in Kent County.
This faith in Chestertown has also included the purchase of the building occupied by the now-closed Lemon Leaf restaurant and JR’s Tavern on High Street as well as the beloved Stam’s pharmacy and ice cream fountain a few blocks down the street.
In all three cases, Culp is now making ambitious plans to reactivate those venues over the next two years with “best in class” dining, an unpretentious neighborhood bar, as well as, to relief of hundreds of sweltering Chestertownians during the summer months, a unique homemade ice cream establishment with such an unusual twist which is so hush-hush the owner would not describe the master plan on camera.
In Larry’s first interview with the Spy, which also served to inaugurate the Chestertown Spy’s new “Head’s Quarters” and studio on South Queen Street, he talks candidly about the serious challenges that face both Washington College and Chestertown still face, but also of the extraordinary opportunities that exist that could very well make WC a “top 50” liberal arts college but also move Chestertown into being one of the best known East Coast destinations over the next decade.
This video is approximately fifteen minutes in length.
Craig Fuller says
So great to hear optimism, enthusiasm and realism about our friends to the north in Chestertown!