G. Keith Funston Papers

G. Keith Funston was born on October 12, 1910, in Waterloo, Iowa. He attended Trinity College from 1928 to 1932. While a student at Trinity, he worked as a chauffeur to the college’s president at the time, Remsen Brinckerhoff Ogilby. He was elected to join Phi Beta Kappa and was the president of the senior honor society. In 1932 Funston graduated valedictorian from Trinity with a B.A. in economics and history. In early 1944, he became an assistant director of the Office of Procurement and Material in the United States Navy's Industrial Readjustment Branch, with the rank of lieutenant commander. Not even 35 years of age, in June 1944, Funston was appointed president of Trinity College, though he remained in the service through the end of World War II.

In November of 1945, after he was released from his wartime duties, Funston officially took office as the president of Trinity College. He made many improvements and achievements, including bolstering the college’s finances through successful fundraising. He established public relations and student placement offices, as well as doubled the enrollments. In fact, the combined endowment and physical plant value rose from $4 million to $6 million in value during his tenure. These are only a few of the things Funston did for Trinity College before he left in 1951 to become the president of the New York Stock Exchange. Funston is well known for his achievements as the President of the New York Stock Exchange. Given a position that was still fairly new, Funston had little knowledge of his duties. Yet, Funston managed to calm investors still nervous due to the crash of 1929. Buoyed by the success of the United States in WWII, Funston tied individual stock ownership rhetorically to patriotism proclaiming himself, “salesman of shares in America.” Along with Funston’s longtime business contacts, he received after serving on the war production board in World War II, this increased the investment in corporate stocks from a little over six million in 1951 to more than twenty-two million by 1967. While Funston was the President of the Stock Exchange, he had many promising ideas. As the U.S. president at the time, Dwight D. Eisenwhower said, “The president of the stock exchange is the second worse job in America.” At 81 years old, G. Keith Funston died of a heart attack on May 15, 1992, in Greenwich, Connecticut.