"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.