Alaska philanthropist and banker Ed Rasmuson dies at age 81:
Edward “Ed” Rasmuson, the banker and philanthropist once considered Alaska’s closest equivalent to a royal prince because of his wealth and influence, died Tuesday at age 81.
When Rasmuson’s father died that year, proceeds from the billion-dollar sale made the Rasmuson Foundation into Alaska’s largest private philanthropic organization. Rasmuson switched from banking to the chairmanship of the foundation, distributingto benefit the arts, education, charitable projects, nonprofit organizations and community projects.
“He was a good friend, a great guy, and a generous person. I think it’s a loss for the state,” said Carl Marrs, a Native corporation executive who was one of Rasmuson’s longtime friends and hunting partners. As a result, Ed grew up in the rough-and-ready streets of Anchorage during and after World War II. Lile died in 1960, and Elmer Rasmuson remarried the following year. Ed went off to Harvard, earning a degree in history, but he stayed involved in the banking industry on the East Coast.
At a Valentine’s Day party in 1969, Rasmuson met a young Canadian, Cathryn “Cathy” Robertson. They were engaged that summer and married that fall. “Ed felt that he was a bridge between the old era and the new, from pencils and bank ledgers ... to computers and internet banking,” Cathy said.When he was picked as the president of the University of Alaska Board of Regents the following year, an Anchorage Times reporter labeled him a “native-born aristocrat in a state too young, free-wheeling and transient to have many such.”
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