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Date: July 10, 1991

Location: Princeton

Title: A Man Who Doesn”t Let Disability Get in His Way

Author: Dan B. Levine

Subject: Blindness has not stopped Gordon Gund from leading a successful sports-business career

Gordon Gund is 51, president of his own investment company in Princeton, and co-owner of the National Basketball Association”s Cleveland Cavaliers and the San Jose Sharks, the National Hockey League”s new expansion team. He also enjoys attending art exhibits, skiing, sculpting and fishing.

So what makes Gund different from other professional sports owners like Bruce McNall or Al Davis? The difference is that Gordon Gund cannot see the gravity-defying dunks of basketball star Michael Jordan or the uncanny passes of hockey star Wayne Gretzky. He can only experience these moments in his mind through the thunder of the crowd and the voice of a radio announcer. Gordon Gund is blind. He suffers from the rare eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which is inherited and causes degeneration of the retina. He lost his sight 20 years ago, but that handicap has not stopped him from continuing a successful business career and leading a full life. Gund and his wife Llura are now spending the summer in Europe.

“He”s meeting blindness head on and letting it be one more item to go through. He never let it stop him from skiing down the tallest mountain in Aspen,” says Jeanne Phillips, who has read Gund”s mail, newspapers and magazines to him for 20 years at Gund Investment Corporation in Princeton. “Instead of it being a disadvantage, he has become more aware of his world around him.”

Alan Landis, the real estate developer, is a long-time friend. Says he: “Gordon is the least handicapped person on earth. He is so full of energy and possesses more positive attitudes toward people than anyone I”ve met. He sees more going on around him than any sighted person I know.”

“Gordon has unusual strength of character,” says Dr. Alan Laties, chairman of the RP Scientific Advisory Board. “He has this wonderful can-do spirit. He is a high performer, and you can see it in everything he does.”

Gund is an example of the old saw about how if you need something done give it to a busy person. In addition to his above titles, he is also chairman of Nationwide Advertising Service in Cleveland, director of Kellogg Company in Battle Creek, Mich. and is involved with ARA Corporation and the Cabot Partners real estate firm. He is also president of the Gund Collection of Western Art, a travelling collection of 60 works of the American West from 1830 to 1930. Gund often amazes board members at those other organizations with his ability to remember information and minute details from old presentations and meetings. Phillips describes Gund as being “very smart and a tough businessman who is wonderful to work with.”

Inheritance and savvy investments have left Gund and his family very well-to-do. Forbes magazine estimates the wealth of Gund plus his three brothers and two sisters to be $1.1 billion.

The son of Cleveland millionaire George Gund II, who founded General Foods” Sanka Division, Gordon and brother George III attended the Groton School in Massachusetts. From there, Gordon went to Harvard, where he played defense for the school”s hockey team. He also loved to ski, row and take pictures. After graduating in 1961, he served a short stint as a naval officer in the Pacific and then moved to New York City, where he was working as a banker when his eye problems began.

At the age of 25, Gund, who had 20/15 central vision, began seeing bright yellow and white spots flash before his eyes. He originally thought his problems were linked to the change in environment. Finally an ophthalmologist told him that he had retinitis pigmentosa. Doctors, though, said that because his case had not developed until he was in his late 20s, he would have his sight until his 60s. But the problems worsened and towards the end of 1970, doctors delivered more bad news: his case was so severe that he would be blind within five to ten years. In fact, he lost his sight in six months.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, however, Gund devoted his energy to his business career and helping to find a cure for RP.

In the mid 1970s, Gund”s brother George, a hockey fanatic, became a minority owner of the NHL”s California Golden Seals. The Oakland-based team was in financial trouble when the NHL decided to take it over from primary owner Charles O. Finley. George Gund and a partner then bought the team from the league and moved it to Cleveland. Later, George”s partner decided to sell his share of the team, and Gordon became a co-owner of the club. But the team called the Cleveland Barons was doomed from the start. After two losing seasons and terrible attendance, Gordon, who handled the financial endeavors of the team, merged the club with the Minnesota North Stars. This was an unprecedented move in professional sports. Never before had two teams permanently merged. But the two brothers from Cleveland were able to accomplish it and kept ownership of the North Stars until last year, when they sold the club. Now the brothers are at it again. They have acquired the NHL”s first expansion team since the 1979-80 season, the San Jose Sharks, which will open play in the 1991-92 season.

Professional hockey is not the only sport in which the Gund brothers dabble. In 1983, Ted Stepien, then owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the worst team in the National Basketball Association, decided to sell his club. The Gunds agreed to buy the franchise, and by the 1988-89 season, the Cavaliers had risento the top of the NBA standings and were setting attendance records. Today the club that the Gunds bought for $20 million is worth more than $75 million dollars.

Gordon Gund follows his Cavaliers much like any other die-hard fan. He is often found in Cleveland”s Richfield Coliseum, which he and George also own, listening to announcer Joe Tait describe the action. Landis recalls once when he and Gund went to see the Cavaliers play against the New Jersey Nets in the Meadowlands Arena. “After the game we went to the locker room, and Gordon knew all the players, their families and their game very well. He was very well schooled,” says Landis. Gund has time for more than business. He spends about one-third of his time working as chairman of the RP Foundation Fighting Blindness. In 1971, he met with Dr. Eliot Berson of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of the Harvard Medical School. Berson, one of the few people in the country familiar with RP, introduced Gund to Bernard Berman, whose two daughters had also lost their sight to RP. The two men worked together to start the foundation to find a cure for retinal degenerative diseases, which affect approximately 100,000 Americans and four million people worldwide. RP takes place when the retina, the paper-thin lining at the back of the eye, which acts like film in a camera, degenerates and loses its ability to form an image. The RP Foundation has raised nearly $30 million for research. In 1989, Town and Country magazine honored Gund for his perseverance and philanthropic work with its Generous American Award. Gund and wife Llura have two sons, Grant and Zachary. The family is often found at their summer house in Nantucket, where he enjoys fly-fishing. The Gunds also have a winter home in Aspen, where he skis with a sighted partner a few feet behind him. The two communicate by use of radio headsets. Gund”s other main hobby is sculpting small figures out of wood or sometimes marble. Gordon Gund has proven that life can go on–despite the most debilitating handicaps. u