Hurst K. Groves ’63

Hurst died Nov. 11, 2020, in Middleburg, Va. He was a prominent energy attorney and a faculty member at Columbia.

His legal career progressed from 10 years at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, in New York and Paris; to Mobil Oil, with four years in Tokyo and as managing counsel in Washington, D.C., until 1999. On retirement from Mobil, he became a professor at Columbia, where he founded the postgraduate Center on Energy Policy. In recent years he assisted an offshore-energy project in West Africa and helped the Overseas Private Investment Corp. distribute laptops to West Bank school children.

Hurst flew a single-engine Cessna and was a lifelong world traveler and devourer of adventure, music, and books. He arrived at Princeton from Park Tudor School in Indianapolis, studied politics, wrote a thesis on the Rural Electrification Administration, was business manager of WPRB, joined Charter Club, did graduate work at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and graduated from Michigan Law.

Hurst is survived by his wife, Barbara A. Sharp; daughters Jennifer Groves and Catherine Groves Ramsdell; son-in-law Justin Ramsdell; stepson John Manekin; and four grandchildren. In 2007 his first wife, Marilyn, died in an auto accident.