“My experience over the years has been that the nonprofit world occasionally takes on things from the for-profit world, and sometimes takes on very bad things,” he says. “I think there is a certain cult of personality in the cultural field that is not unlike some of the more visible CEOs of the corporate world. And I think that’s wrong. I think the best of the cultural leaders, the people who place their institutions before themselves, they’re not self-aggrandizing.”

And Limpert says that today’s chief executives are a different breed from those he worked with at the MoMA 30 years ago.

“The emphasis on the bottom line was not then what it is now,” he says. “The guys I worked with, they had long-range views about what was good for the country, good for the city. The right word is, frankly, cultivated.”

Today Limpert works as a consultant. He counsels museums, science institutes, educational outlets, and other nonprofits on fundraising.

He says that he enjoys his work immensely. “The psychic rewards—traditionally the main reason for doing nonprofit work—have been enormous,” he wrote in his 50th reunion report.

“I have no plans for retirement because I have no role model for it,” Limpert says. “My father lived to be 104 and was active practically to the very end of his life.”

He notes that many retirees fill their time by doing “good works—but I’ve been doing these good works for a very long time already.”

—Staff writer Michael M. Grynbaum can be reached at grynbaum@fas.harvard.edu.