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April 10, 2000
Gerald Garvey, political scientist and former government official, dies
Princeton, N.J. -- Gerald Garvey, professor of politics at Princeton University, died on April 9 at the Medical Center at Princeton, as a result of complications of cancer. He was a political scientist with interests in American politics, public policy, public administration and political theory.
Born in 1935 in Chicago, Ill., Garvey attended the University of Notre Dame for two years before earning a B.S. degree in 1959 at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was an Air Force officer until his discharge as captain in 1969. He studied at Columbia University's Russian Language Institute in 1959 and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1962.
An instructor in political science at the Air Force Academy from 1962 to 1964, he joined the Princeton faculty in 1968 as associate professor, becoming professor in 1972.
Prior to his appointment at Princeton, Garvey served in a variety of government posts, including defense policy analyst, Office of the Vice-Chief of Staff for the Air Force (1964); executive director, President's Cabinet Task Force on U.S. Indian Policy (1968); and director of planning and special projects for the U.S. Federal Power Commission (1966-68). A frequent consultant to the federal government, he was most recently consultant to the director, Air Policy Office, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1989-90).
His 11 books include Public Administration: The Profession and the Practice (1996); Facing the Bureaucracy: Living and Dying in a Public Bureaucracy (1993); Strategy and the Defense Dilemma (1984); Energy, Ecology, Economy (1973); and Constitutional Bricolage (1970). He co-edited Improving Government Performance: An Owners' Manual (with J. DiIulio and D. Kettl, 1993); Economic Law and Economic Growth: Antitrust, Rate Regulation and the American Growth System (with G. Garvey, 1990); and International Resource Flows (with L. Garvey, 1976). He has also written numerous articles on American political thought, public law, national security affairs and energy policy.
In the early 1950s in Chicago, Garvey was an NBC actor in commercials, live dramas and a science program, "Mr. Wizard."
At Princeton, Garvey taught American Democracy, American Bureaucracy and Public Administration, The Politics of Corporate Governance, and other courses in American constitutional interpretation and political thought.
He was co-master of Princeton Inn College (now Forbes College) 1977 to 1980, and master of Stevenson Hall from 1970 to 1974. He served on the University Research Board from 1970 to 1974, and participated in Woodrow Wilson School summer institutes for federal officials in 1991 and 1992.
In 1999, he received the Stanley Kelley Teaching Award, given by the Department of Politics for distinguished teaching.
Garvey is survived by his wife, the former Lou Ann Benshoof (his co-master at Princeton Inn College); three sons: Edward of St. Paul, Minn., Gregory of Rochester, N.Y., and Scott of Portland, Ore., and a daughter, Sarah, of San Francisco, Calif.
The family request that any memorial contributions be sent to the Cancer Institute of New Jersey or the Medical Center at Princeton.
There will be a memorial service at a later date.