Malcolm McLean was enjoying a distinguished career as a U.S. diplomat in Central America until he got a call from an old family friend.
It was the early 1970s. The friend, a board member at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., told McLean that he should consider applying to become president of that school.
Soon McLean, a Duluth native, made a complete career change. He moved his family from his post in Guatemala to northern Wisconsin. From 1971 to 1987, he helped shape Northland into a liberal arts school with a strong environmental studies curriculum.
McLean, 87, died Nov. 19 in his St. Paul home.
His son Hugh McLean, of Elmhurst, Ill., said his father "filled people with the spirit of Northland College."
"Three things my father deeply loved: Northland College, his family, and finally, my mother," he said. "He worshiped my mother."
McLean met his wife, Wendy, when they were both working in Korea. They dated for two weeks, then married. They were married for 58 years.
Said Hugh McLean: "I told her, 'Mom, you are a fairy tale. You met a man, you fell in love in two weeks and lived happily every after.' She is going to miss him worst of all. They were soul mates."
