Robert V. Abendroth

Class of 1951: Extraordinary commitment

Robert Van Abendroth has given a lifetime of service and commitment to Ripon College, sparked by a familial investment in the College that spans four generations.

Abendroth is one of the longest-serving member of Ripon’s Board of Trustees, spanning 31 years from 1965-1996. For 19 of those years, he was chairman of the board. Upon his retirement from the board in 1996, he was elected Honorary Life Trustee.

Abendroth was born in January 1929 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and grew up in Sheboygan.

His connection with Ripon goes back to the 1890s when a great-uncle first attended. He was followed by as many as 18 extended family members, including Abendroth’s parents, Clarence Abendroth, Class of 1920, and Amy Vandervelde Abendroth, Class of 1917; two of his children, Thomas Abendroth, Class of 1981, and Kurt Abendroth, Class of 1988; his first wife, Elizabeth Marie Schmitter Abendroth, Class of 1952; and several extended family members

At Ripon, he studied French and philosophy. He participated in the Political Science Club; served as president of Delta Sigma Psia and his senior class; was captain of the tennis team; and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

After graduation, he said he no clear image of what he wanted to become. He said the solution was to “eliminate every alternative and the law was what was left.”

He graduated in 1954 from New York University School of Law and served in U.S. Army for two years. He then headed to Washington, D.C., where he served as the first law clerk for Warren Burger, then a little-known judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Later, during Abendroth’s tenure as Ripon’s chairman of the board, he invited Burger to address Ripon’s Commencement in 1967. Reports of his Commencement remarks caught the attention of the U.S. Attorney General, who forwarded them to President Richard Nixon, who shortly thereafter appointed Burger as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Burger light-heartedly gave credit to Abendroth for his Supreme Court appointment.

In 1958, Abendroth joined the Whyte, Hirschboeck, Minahan, Harding and Harland law firm in Milwaukee as an associate and was made a partner in 1965. He worked primarily in antitrust law, which protects trade from unlawful restraints and monopolies or unfair business practices.

During his tenure as Ripon’s chairman, he sat on each of the board’s committees, helped strengthen the College financially and substantially changed the face of the campus. Four new buildings were added: J.M. Storzer Center for athletics, C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts, Todd Wehr Hall and the president’s house.

East Hall, Tri-Dorms and Bartlett Hall were restored, and 100 computers were installed across campus.

He also has served as president of Ripon’s Alumni Association, an Alumni Trustee, an enthusiastic volunteer for numerous initiatives, and a generous benefactor, including funding for the Abendroth Family Endowed Scholarship and the family-sponsored Abendroth Athletic Suite in Willmore Center.

He received Ripon College’s Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1972; the Medal of Merit, Ripon’s highest honor for a graduate, in 1993; and the Founders’ Day Award in 2026.

He said the value of a liberal arts education is to provide a motivation to think, talk and write as an educated adult and to be a better citizen. “A liberal arts education is a smorgasbord of ideas and different subjects. Opening your mind at that age of a student gives rise to joy and vitality throughout one’s entire life. It certainly has done that for me.”

He also said, “Each of us grows and expands our horizons through the people we associate with. How refreshing it has been to rub shoulders with all the fine people I’ve met at Ripon, the other trustees, the administrators, faculty and students.”