Obituary: Lawrence Gibson, retired from General Mills, was a lifelong learner, social justice advocate

Lawrence Gibson had much to celebrate when he dropped his car off at the mechanic on Monday afternoon.

The 89-year-old was in good health, still sharing life with Lois Kestenbaum Gibson, his wife of 68 years. A day earlier he got to see an advance copy of his first book, which will be published in November. A few weeks before that, he met his first great-grandchild, and this coming April he was booked for a trip to Eastern Europe with his oldest son.

He left the Firestone auto shop and started to walk the four blocks back to his home but never made it. He was struck by a vehicle at the intersection of Hawthorne Avenue and 11th Street and died early the next morning.

The funeral for the former head of marketing research at General Mills and 50-year member of Temple Israel in Minneapolis was Thursday. He was a devoted advocate for social justice, a sailor, baseball fan, Civil War buff and student of Zen Buddhism and his own Jewish faith.

"He had a big brain and a big heart," said Rick Gibson, his son. "He would find something he was interested in, and just dig deeply into it."

Gibson graduated from high school in Columbus, Ohio, and enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was put to work at a base in New York state straightening out GI payrolls, which were a mess at the time. "He liked to say he was in the 101st Chairborne division," son Stuart Gibson said.

After his time in the military, Gibson went back to Ohio and earned undergraduate and master's degrees at Ohio State University. He met Lois there, playing bridge at the Hillel House in February 1948. They were married before year's end and had their five children before they turned 30.

In the late 1960s, Gibson and his family moved to Minneapolis so he could take a job at General Mills. They settled in Tangletown, and he bought a boat, something he'd always wanted. He and his children sailed on Lake Harriet until two summers ago.

Gibson worked at General Mills for 20 years, where former executive Steve Rothschild said the company benefited from his "superior intellect and knowledge of consumer behavior." Gibson meanwhile established himself as a national authority on the subject, helping teach a course at the University of Notre Dame and serving on the American Marketing Association's board of directors.

His monograph on marketing research, "Not Just Numbers," which he wrote in his 80s, will be published by Maven House Press on Nov. 15.

Gibson was a 30-year member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and for much of the past three decades, he was a board member for the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, where he worked on various causes with a "nervous, urgent energy," according to former director Brian Rusche.

"He was intimidating — his demand for data and proof," Rusche said. "He didn't shy away from conflict and yet he loved his enemy."

"He was a giant citizen in this state and people should know what that looks like," Rusche said.

Police are still investigating the accident that killed Gibson but said the driver has been cooperative, and police don't believe drugs or alcohol were a factor.