Joan Morthland Hutchins

Joan Morthland Hutchins '61 has been elected president of the Board of Overseers for 1999-2000. She will assume the post after Commencement, succeeding Charlotte P. Armstrong '49, LLB '53.

Entering the final year of her six-year term as Overseer, Hutchins is president and CEO of the Compotite Corp., a building-materials manufacturing firm based in Los Angeles, as well as president of MBH Farms Inc. in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Hutchins' contributions to the Board of Overseers have been many and varied. A member of the Board's Executive Committee since 1997, she currently chairs its Standing Committee on Schools, the College and Continuing Education. She also sits on the Board's committees on Natural and Applied Sciences and Alumni Affairs and Development. Hutchins chaired the Board's ad hoc committee on information technology in 1997-98, and for a number of years has represented the Overseers on the Advisory Committee on Honorary Degrees. A member of the Committee on University Resources, Hutchins also is chair of the Committee to Visit the Arnold Arboretum and a member of the Committee to Visit the Graduate School of Education.

"Joan Hutchins is an exceptionally talented executive and a deeply committed alumna who has been a broad-gauged and energetic leader on the Board of Overseers since 1994," said President Neil L. Rudenstine. "She has served Harvard with distinction across an impressive array of fields, and I know she will lead the Board with the same dedication and foresight that have characterized Charlotte Armstrong's tenure. It will be a great pleasure for me to work with Joan even more closely in the coming year."

"It is a special privilege to lead the Board at this time of increased intellectual ferment at Harvard," Hutchins said. "New facilities in both the humanities and the sciences, substantially increased collaboration across Schools and departments, and pervasive changes in technology are spurring the imaginations of our faculty and students as never before. The Board will continue to work closely with President Rudenstine, Provost Fineberg, and the Corporation to welcome the 21st century into every part of Harvard University."

A past president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Long Island, Hutchins served on the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Board of Directors before her election to the University's Board of Overseers. She is a past chair of the HAA Alumni Awards Committee and the Alumni Career Counseling Subcommittee. She served on the Committee to Visit the Department of Athletics from 1985 to 1991, and has worked closely with the Harvard- Radcliffe Foundation for Women's Athletics.

Hutchins received her A.B. in mathematics from Radcliffe in 1961, then worked as a mathematician in industry and as a management consultant. In the mid-1980s she joined Compotite, serving as vice president for development before becoming president and CEO in 1989. In the 1980s, she studied agronomy at the State University of New York at Farmingdale before assuming the presidency of MBH Farms in 1986.

Hutchins has served on the boards of the Royal Music Foundation Inc., the Bowdoin College Summer Music Festival, and the Long Island Biological Association (Cold Spring Harbor Lab).

She is the mother of four children, including Andrew E. Bush '90 and Georgia R. Bush '92.