Jerry Edwin Richardson ’64

Jerry died October 18, 2003, in Brazil after a two-year struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS.

A native Floridian, Jerry attended Seacrest High School in Delray Beach, where he was a football star and the best high school pitcher in South Florida. He went on to play football and baseball at Princeton while majoring in English and joining Ivy Club.

After graduation he studied at San Francisco State University and had a very successful career as a student of organizational behavior and a nationally known communications consultant. His book, The Magic of Rapport, is recognized as the first book to take the practice of neuro-linguistic programming and make it accessible to the business world.

Jerry was passionate about travel, sports, poetry, learning, family, and friends. He had a lifelong love of golf, scuba diving, and mountain biking, and cherished the many lasting friendships he made throughout his life. Several classmates and friends wrote that he displayed extraordinary courage as he coped with a disease he knew he could not defeat. If the best measure of a person's character is the strength and faith in life brought to bear in the face of certain death, then Jerry's life was completed triumphantly.

Jerry is survived by his wife, Lynn Lannon; his mother, Madelyn Richardson; and several cousins. To them, we extend gratitude for his life and deepest condolences.

The Class of 1964