Kenneth R. Gill '61 receives McDaniel College Alumni Community Service Award
KENNETH R. GILL RECEIVES ALUMNI COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD FROM McDANIEL COLLEGE
Gill of Severna Park, Md., is a 1961 alumnus of the college
WESTMINSTER, Md. – Kenneth R. Gill of Severna Park, Md., has received the alumni community service award from McDaniel College. He is a 1961 alumnus of the college.
Presented annually during McDaniel’s Homecoming, the alumni community service award is given to a graduate who has performed outstanding voluntary service to their community beyond normal business or professional obligations.
Gill majored in sociology at McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland) College and played football all four years. A member of the college’s ROTC program, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army after graduation and served in the 101st Airborne Division during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After his return from the service, he went to graduate school at the University of Maryland.
Through an ad in the Wall Street Journal, he got involved with the food industry. He began his entrepreneurial voyage in foodservice as a restaurant operator, eventually moving on to the equipment-dealer business and ultimately presiding over multinational distribution operation. He has owned all or part of as many as seven companies at once, including Gill Group, Inc., an international foodservice equipment and supplies contractor ranked among the largest in the country, and The Gill Company, which is comprised of Gill Marketing and Gill Manufacturing.
He joined Food Service Equipment Association (FEDA) in 1978 and served as president from 1989–1991; he later helped establish FEDA’s Educational Foundation. In 1996, he became a founding partner of Foodservice Equipment Reports. In 2009, he received FEDA’s lifetime achievement award. He was named to Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2015.
Gill was elected to the McDaniel College Board of Trustees in 2002 and has set up a scholarship fund to honor his wife, Joanne Moffatt Gill, a 1962 alumna, as well as created the Ken Gill Fund for Enterprise Economics at the college. In 2012, McDaniel dedicated the Kenneth R. Gill Stadium in his honor. He chaired the Stadium Project Committee to fund the $8-million-plus facility solely through individual gifts including his own $2.25 million donation. Also in 2012, he was inducted into McDaniel’s Sports Hall of Fame.
A graduate of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., he was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2009. He has also served on numerous boards, including at Anne Arundel Medical Center, where he was treated for prostate cancer. A walkway at the hospital is named after Gill and his wife.
