Lovett Baker ’52

Lovett died Feb. 7, 2011, in Houston, Texas, after a short bout with metastatic melanoma. He was 79.

Born in Houston to Adelaide Lovett Baker and Walter Browne Baker, his two grandfathers were Capt. James A. Baker, who oversaw the creation of what is now Rice University and served as the first chairman of its board of trustees, and Edgar Odell Lovett, the Princeton mathematics department chairman who became Rice’s first president in 1912.

Lovett came to Princeton from Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a member of Charter Club and majored in economics.

After graduation, he served in the Navy until 1954, when he married Joanne Prescott, a student at Vassar College. In 1960, he graduated from Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University.

In Houston, Lovett had a successful career that included founding five banks and serving as vice chairman and executive vice president of Compass Bank. He taught banking at Rice’s Jesse Jones Graduate School of Business for 23 years.

An active alumnus, he and Joanne attended many class reunions, major and mini.

We extend deepest sympathy to Joanne; his children, Melissa Baker Jones, Lovett Baker Jr., and Caroline Baker Hurley; and his six grandchildren.