Richard W. Kimball

RICHARD KIMBALL 

1928 - 2026

Richard W. Kimball, 98, of Sheffield, died on July 30 following a brief illness. He was the son of Charles Carleton and Elizabeth (Ward) Kimball of Andover, MA, attended local schools there, and graduated from Phillips Academy. He graduated from Harvard College in 1950 and remained active in the affairs of his class for the rest of his life.

After service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he married Athena Georgia Giftos in St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Pittsfield. They celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in June 2026. They had three children, a daughter, Susan Kittredge, who died at birth; a son, Charles Carleton II, who lives in Chicago; and a daughter, Anastasia Seeley, who lives in Middletown, CT with her partner, Claire E. Shea. He also leaves a sister, Margaret K. Montgomery, of Newport Beach, CA, and four nephews. He was predeceased by his brother, John, and sister-in-law, Margaret, of Andover, MA; by his brother-in-law, Robert, and a niece, Alexandra, of Newport Beach, CA, and by Brenda Giles Elliott of South Croydon, London, England, who spent the Second World War with the Kimball family as an evacuee, and whom he considered a second sister.

After several years in the fund-raising business, Mr. Kimball joined Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), now ExxonMobil, and spent almost thirty years there in various executive assignments in New York; Geneva, Switzerland; and London. For much of his career he worked in the nascent (at the time) field of corporate governance. He served for many years as secretary of the corporation’s management committee and as secretary of most of the committees of its board of directors. He was manager of corporate and management services, with responsibility for Exxon's shareholder relations and communications with institutional investors, when he retired in 1985.

In 1987 he was named chief executive officer of The Teagle Foundation in New York. For the next fifteen years, he directed a focused expansion of its programs in support of private higher education, with a particular emphasis on strengthening liberal arts colleges dedicated to the support of underserved populations, and a secondary emphasis on theological education and nursing education. In 2001, Mr. Kimball received the Allen P. Splete Award for Outstanding Service to American higher education from The Council of Independent Colleges in Washington, DC, and in 2003 received the Presidents’ Distinguished Service Award of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. He served as a trustee of LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, TN, and Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT, and received eight honorary degrees.

Until 2011, he was a trustee of Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, the latter for twenty-five years. He was also a director emeritus and former president of the New York City Mission Society, the City's oldest social service agency, on whose board he sat for over thirty years. He was a member and former president (1984-86) of the Harvard Club of New York City and a member of The Century Association in New York.

After moving to the Berkshires full time in 2006, he devoted himself to abstract painting, a lifelong interest, and exhibited his work at juried shows locally and in New York City. He served on the board of the Sheffield Land Trust and on the Berkshire Regional Council of The Trustees of Reservations, an organization with which his family has been involved since the 1940s. He worked on Appalachian Mountain Club hut crews in the White Mountains from 1944-46, an experience that he always considered a formative one. He was an avid gardener, a loyal Red Sox fan, and a downhill skier into his late eighties.

A Celebration of Life will be held at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 17, in the New Marlborough Meeting House, 154 Hartsville-New Marlborough Road, New Marlborough, MA. In lieu of flowers, gifts in his memory may be made c/o Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home 426 Main St. Great Barrington, MA 01230.

Addison Gallery of American Art

https://addison.andover.edu/ways-to-give/

Appalachian Mountain Club

https://www.outdoors.org/donate/donate-form/

Heritage University

https://heritage.edu/donate-now/