Charles Duncan Jr. ’47, whose graduation from Rice University foreshadowed a long career as an executive and director at major American corporations and a cabinet secretary serving the nation’s president, died Tuesday at age 96.
Duncan played a prominent role in the university’s history, generously supporting Rice with not only his leadership skills but also his good fortune. His influence is evident throughout the campus, where two landmarks — a residential college and an engineering building — bear his name.
“Charles Duncan earned a chemical engineering degree from Rice in 1947 and supported his alma mater for years afterward, serving on the Board of Trustees, helping create the Baker Institute and donating $30 million to establish a residential college in his name,” said President Reginald DesRoches. "He was one of Rice's biggest fans. The Rice community will forever be grateful for his support and generosity, which will have a lasting impact on the university and the Houston community.”
Duncan served on Rice’s governing board for a number of different terms beginning in 1965 before becoming its chairman in 1982. During his 14-year chairmanship, the university’s endowment roughly quadrupled, mushrooming from $434 million to $1.7 billion. He also led the searches for two university presidents, George Rupp and Malcolm Gillis.
“The Rice community is saddened by the passing of Charles Duncan,” said Robert T. Ladd ’78, the chair of the Rice Board of Trustees. “Mr. Duncan had a profound impact on Rice University as chair of the Board of Trustees. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family.”
Duncan rose to national prominence when President Jimmy Carter invited him to Washington to serve as deputy secretary of defense. His performance in that post led Carter to appoint him as energy secretary, an especially sensitive position during a national crisis in which oil shortages were forcing American motorists to wait in line for gasoline. Duncan won praise for his management skills as well as his work smoothing relations with members of Congress and leaders of other countries.
“Rosalynn and I are saddened by Charles Duncan’s passing,” said a statement from former President Carter. “He was my friend for over 50 years, and in addition to his incredible success in business, served with distinction in two of the most critical positions in the federal government.”
“Charles Duncan represented the very best of his country, his state and his hometown,” said former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the honorary chair of the public policy institute that bears his name. “A native son of Houston, he was a no-nonsense corporate leader and secretary of energy for the United States who diligently maintained a laser-like focus on getting things done. Although his career took him around the world, Charles never lost his love for Houston, where he played a critical role as chairman of the board of Rice University and in the creation of the Baker Institute for Public Policy on that campus. My wife Susan and I will greatly miss him, and we send our deepest sympathy to his entire family.”
Duncan was born in Houston in 1926 to a family that had built a fortune in the coffee business. The nation was at war when he enrolled at Rice as a freshman in 1943. His education was briefly interrupted when he volunteered for the Army Air Force at age 17, but the war ended before he started flight training. After his graduation in 1947, he worked as an oilfield roustabout before joining the family business. With the help of a popular coffee blend called Maryland Club, he built Duncan Coffee into such a powerful rival of Folgers and Maxwell House it caught the eye of executives at Coca-Cola, who bought Duncan’s family business and offered him a seat on the Coca-Cola board.
Duncan moved up the corporate ladder at Coca-Cola, traveling the world as he led the company’s European operations and eventually rose to its presidency. He would later write that his four years at the corporation’s headquarters in Atlanta were “not always pleasant,” but they paid off with an important friendship. Two years after Duncan stepped down from the presidency of Coca-Cola and moved his family back to Houston, Georgia’s governor was elected president of the United States. Carter invited Duncan to join his administration.
“As my deputy secretary of defense, he championed the modernization of our services and the equality of women’s rights,” Carter said in his statement. “As secretary of energy, his leadership resulted in a dramatic reduction in imported oil and stabilization of our domestic consumption. His intelligence and ability have provided a lasting example of a steady hand and encouraged cooperation.”
After Carter lost the 1980 election, Duncan returned to Houston and became chairman of Rotan Mosle Financial Corp. and Robertson Distribution, a trucking business. He also joined the boards of several major corporations and nonprofits, including the American Express Co., Texas Commerce Bank, the Robert A. Welch Foundation and Houston Methodist. And in January 1981, Duncan was reelected a Rice trustee.
“Of all the endeavors I have been involved in, Rice University is the one most likely to have the longest-term positive impact,” Duncan wrote.
In 2007, Duncan and his wife Anne donated $30 million to establish Rice’s 11th residential college, which bears their name. Upon his retirement from the Board of Trustees in 1996, the School of Engineering named its new computational engineering building the Anne and Charles Duncan Hall. The Lillian H. Duncan Recital Hall in Alice Pratt Brown Hall and the Duncan Gallery in the Morrison Theater of the Brockman Hall for Opera also bear their names.
In a message to the Rice community, President DesRoches noted that Duncan’s legacy will continue with the Charles W. Duncan Jr.-Welch Chair in Chemistry, the Anne and Charles Duncan Concertmaster Chair, the Lillian H. Duncan Prize for Excellence in Piano (honoring his mother), the Charles W. Duncan Jr. Achievement Award for Outstanding Faculty, and the Anne S. and Charles W. Duncan Jr. Fund in the James A. Baker III Institute.
“For me, Charles Duncan was Mr. Rice,” said Chris Dow, an author and former Rice Magazine editor who worked with Duncan on his memoirs. “His chairmanship of the university board over the course of nearly two decades of often troubling times not only set the university on a course to expand and deepen its offerings, it set a superb example of leadership for all who witnessed it. I found Mr. Duncan to be a forthright, generous and aware human being with a solid sense of who he was, what needed to be done and the way to go about making things happen. Just as importantly, he had a good sense of humor. The Earth is a less vital place without his spirit and will.”