Sanders Associates co-founder Mort Goulder dies at 87

Friday, February 15, 2008

Many in the corporate world recognized Mort Goulder as one of the founders of Sanders Associates, the electronics company that launched the digital revolution in New Hampshire.

More than 100 executives regarded Goulder as their angel investor, someone whose informal breakfast club meetings connected their startup companies to necessary capital.

Many Hollis residents came to know Goulder as a citizen fully involved in shaping the growth of his community, whether as a member of a board or as an untiring letter writer to newspaper editors.

But almost everyone knew Goulder, who died Jan. 25 at 87, as someone who always spoke his mind, a man with strong and often unorthodox opinions.

Goulder’s death came almost exactly a year after the death of Royden Sanders, for whom Sanders Associates is named. Sanders died Feb. 5, 2007, at the age of 89.

According to Goulder’s son Michael, even until the end, Goulder still had a “childlike curiosity” for how things worked. “He lived and worked at a frenetic pace,” his son said. “And he had an engineer’s sense of right and wrong - everything was black and white.”

That perspective always pushed Goulder to engage in passionate - and sometimes one-sided - arguments about a wide spectrum of topics, friends said. His strong belief in what was right sometimes led to extraordinary behavior, like the time his ax stopped a town-owned chainsaw from chopping trees on his dirt road.

But Goulder didn’t allow his persuasive nature to overcome an ability to make friends and help others, many said. Only recently did Michael Goulder learn that his father made sizable donations to Leahy Clinic and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in 1942. Other friends remembered him quietly slipping money to people in need.

“He had friends from all walks of life,” said friend David Joyce. “He was the type of guy who would sit down with a janitor of a club but also have dinner with the president of MIT. He’s certainly a man of accomplishment … I’d say to my wife, ‘I don’t know why he’s hanging out with me.’"

Helping startups

If Goulder had hung his hat just on his achievements at Sanders Associates, he would have still impressed many in the electronics field.

He left Raytheon to join 10 others in founding Sanders Associates (now BAE Systems), the company that effectively transferred southern New Hampshire’s ties from a dying textile trade to an emerging computers industry.

His work there led to an appointment as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and warning. He served under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter.

But that insatiable curiosity pushed Goulder to other endeavors. He started M.E. Goulder Enterprises, a consulting firm that specialized in high technology and investment management.

On a cruise in 1976, he met Dick Morley. After some discussion they joined George Schwenk in starting The Breakfast Club, an informal group of investors who have helped new companies get off the ground for almost 20 years.

The Breakfast Club reviewed about two business deals a week, and invested in about four companies a year, Morley said. Morley and Schwenk estimated that the club has boosted more than 100 startups.

“He was a great inspiration to a lot of companies,” Schwenk said. “It’s interesting how many e-mails have been written about him in the last two years. I didn’t know techies could write so well.”

One startup that benefited from The Breakfast Club was Carbonite, a Boston firm that provides back-up systems to computers.

“Mort is just one of these guys who just makes things happen,” said David Friend, president of Carbonite. “He was just busy, busy, busy. For a guy his age to be running around like that was amazing.”

Goulder also was a defining example of “a real, old Yankee in the best sense,” Friend said. “He was a frugal guy with a lot of money, but he never had any interest in flashing it around. He drove an old car and lived modestly.”

‘Cheer and dignity’

His legacy as a Sanders Associates founder and venture capitalist led to his being named 2007 Citizen of the Year by the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce.

But Goulder also carved a mark as an active citizen of Hollis. He served on the town budget committee and Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School Board, and made his voice heard in all meetings.

Longtime town moderator Jim Squires first met Goulder when they and a few others established Matthew Thornton Health Care in 1971. Over the years, they shared a deep concern for the evolution of their town, even if they didn’t always agree.

“He was an outspoken member of the budget committee,” Squires said. “Sometimes I had to help him restrain his comments about various issues that came before voters, but he was deeply committed to this community, trying to make it a better place,” Squires said.

Goulder wrote dozens of letters to the editor, including many to The Telegraph, about town issues and national politics. He described himself as a conservative Republican in a 2001 feature story in this newspaper, but he pulled no punches in criticizing President Bush over the years.

His family noted that he wrote his last letter in December, from an intensive care bed. The opinion piece said Hollis selectmen were “drunk with ego power” for banning citizens from socializing at the town dump.

Failing health in his last few years still didn’t stop Goulder, family and friends said.

“He faced his declining years with great cheer and dignity,” Squires said. “It was amazing to see how quick he bounced back from things.”

Hip replacement surgery last year did slow Goulder’s tennis game, but he never lost his love for the sport, friends said.

“He could be intimidating if you didn’t know him,” Joyce said. “Mort and I didn’t play with each other because we’d argue all the time.”

One time, Goulder refused to acknowledge that Joyce had served an ace. They argued. Finally, Joyce collected all the balls and went home, prematurely ending the doubles match. The next day they again took to the court - but this time laughing.

- ALBERT MCKEON

THE TELEGRAPH

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