Meeting Challenges Head On

"The Saltonstall family came to America on the first group of ships after the Mayflower, and the family has been at Harvard as long as Harvard has existed," Robert Saltonstall, associate vice president for operations, says.

Nevertheless, Saltonstall broke an 11-generation, family tradition by defecting to Brown.

"I was accepted at Harvard," he explains, adding, however that after a half-day visit to Brown "I felt that that was the place for me, but I didn't get that feeling at Harvard."

Since graduating from Brown in 1957, Saltonstall has never stayed in any one job for long. His long resume includes descriptions of his jobs as a trainee in a Betty Crocker cake mix plant in Buffalo, N.Y., and as the president of a Sailboat manufacturing company.

When Saltonstall landed at Harvard in 1981, he found that his position encompassed almost as many responsibilities as all his previous jobs combined. Currently, Saltonstall supervises the University's Buildings and Grounds Department, construction management, Food Services, the Faculty Club, parking facilities, and Planning Department.

In the short period of time he has been here the tradition-breaking Saltonstall has begun a major reorganization of the previously much-maligned Buildings and Grounds Department (B&G).

"I see my biggest challenge here at Harvard as accomplishing a real change in the level of service of B&G," he says, and already a positive change in the services of the department has been reported by several faculties of the University.

"These meetings have been really cool," says Kathleen A. Montague, assistant manager of the Faculty Club, adding, "They bring us together so we know what kinds of services we can offer each other."

Although his reorganization of B&G has attracted the most attention, Saltonstall divides his time equally between all six departments.

In parking, he works with Robert Burns, manager of the department, to maintain the University's lots in areas ranging from snow clearing to the collection of fees.

Last fall, for example, several faculty members became quite upset when they were unable to park their cars in their assigned Holyoke Center parking lot spaces. Because there were too many cars and too few spaces, Saltonstall and his parking office were called in to solve the problem.

"It needed serious attention and it got it," Saltonstall says, adding, "Where one stands on the parking ladder is a very big status issue for the faculty. In fact, the most difficult part of running the parking department is assigning spaces."

As director of the Construction Management and Planning Departments, he supervises the University's building projects, "which includes handling architectural work, engineering, and contractors," Saltonstall says.

In an innovative move to improve relations among all six of his departments, he held a three day weekend outing for staff members of the divisions. They attended workshops and classes on increasing efficiency and techniques to improve the management of the offices.

"It was a big surprise to find out we really didn't know the people of the other departments or what they did," Montague said.

"The directors really got to know each other simply by going on this hike in the woods," says Burns.

But, Saltonstall's career at Harvard has only been a small part of his diverse business experiences. "The only pattern in my past," he says, "is that I'm always attracted to an unusual challenge."

First he broke the family tradition by attending Brown. White at Brown, he played hockey and rowed crew for four years.

He characterizes himself as a "scrambler" in athletics. One highlight of his career, he says, was playing against Bill Cleary '58, Harvard's hockey coach, who was then playing for Harvard. Reflecting on his competition against Cleary, Saltonstall says, "He was simply a superior player."

After leaving Brown, Saltonstall adds, his family expected him to eventually become an educator, following another Saltonstall tradition.

"But, those weren't my plans," he says, adding, "At the time, I really didn't know what I wanted to do."

Leaving Brown with an A.B. in math, Saltonstall went to work for Betty Crocker, working his way up from a cake mix plant trainee to a supervisor and engineer. During his five year stint in the cake business, he was moved from Buffalo to Chicago to Minneapolis.

For a short time, however, he did manage to link himself up with family tradition by attending Harvard Business School.

"I had planned to do it all along," he says, "but it was just a question of when." Although "my two years there were not enjoyable," he adds, "they were worthwhile."

After receiving his degree in 1964, he stayed on as a research and teaching assistant, but one year later he was ready for yet a new challenge and moved back into the food business, managing a B&M Baked Beans plant in Portland, Maine.

After three years of baking beans, a friend told him about an opening for the presidency of the small O'Day Sailboat Company, which manufactures fiberglass boats.

"This gave me a new challenge," he says, "since I had an opportunity to run my own company." After getting the job, Saltonstall settled down in Fall River, Mass.

"My employment there was a failure," he says, continuing, "and it was the least satisfactory of all my jobs." Saltonstall adds, "I could never seem to figure out how to make the company successful. It was not doing well when I got there, and it was not doing well when I left. And, that's why I left."

Another friend then told him about an opening for general manager at a resort in Waterville Valley, N.H. He moved again, "since I wanted the challenge of working with the general public." His "responsibilities included handling 5000 people at a time, running a ski lift, ticketing, and running a restaurant." After eight years, he had enabled the previously struggling company to turn a profit.

Nevertheless, he was not content to stay on and relish this success. "I was ready to move back to the city at the time," he says, "and this job [at Harvard] was then brought to my attention by a headhunter."

Managing a resort and being an associate vice president at Harvard, he says, are "actually quite similar." "In both cases, I'm trying to make a large clientele happy. Here, if you don't like the food, you'll take it out on your professor, or if you fall over a brick on the way to class, you can't play hockey in the afternoon. I have to make sure that Harvard has a good physical environment."

Nevertheless, Saltonstall points out that his current job does present him with greater responsibilities. "I have to be very careful with how I spend my time," he says, "and I have to be very sensitive to establish ways to keep several projects in motion at the same time." Managers of the departments Saltonstall supervises have all been to quick to praise their boss efforts and innovations.

Assistant Dean for Financial and General Administration at the Law School, Russell A. Simpson, a member of one of the Buildings and Grounds reorganization committee, which has met with Saltonstall weekly for the past year, says that Saltonstall "is not just one who deals with dollars and cents, but one who knows how to deal with people as well. "He's a very reasonable man who is easy to work with," he adds.