Meehan, George V. (1894-1968)
Role: Industrialist & PhilanthropistDates:
Portrait Location: Meehan Foyer
Artist: Aiken, Robert F. ()
Portrait Date: 199?
Medium:
Dimensions:
Framed Dimensions:
Brown Portrait Number: 263
Brown Historical Property Number: 2304
In the winter of 1960, Brown's President Barnaby C. Keeney (BP 183 & 201) received a phone call that resulted in a hasty gathering of 30 prominent alumni who shared a deep love for Brown hockey. At the meeting Keeney announced that a gentleman had called him the night before.
Keeney recalled, "He asked me if it would be all right if he gave Brown half a million dollars to construct a hockey rink at Aldrich-Dexter Field. I told him it would be just fine."
That phone call was made by George Vincent Meehan, a self-made man who never attended college. Until his death, Meehan was President and Director of the Meehan Fund Inc, a family trust into which he later merged his many business and philanthropic interests. It was through this trust that in 1960 he donated $500,000 towards the construction of the University's first ice hockey rink ? today known as the Meehan Auditorium.
Meehan was the President and Director of the former Powdrell and Alexander Inc, a textile and investment trust firm with headquarters in Providence. The corporation's divisions included the former Continental Mills Inc of Lewiston Maine, the Pepsi Cola bottling plant in Cincinnati Ohio, and a planned residential development in Boca Raton Florida.
Meehan was born in Malone New York on July 21, 1894 to Henry and Ella Meehan. He began his career as an agent and accountant with the IRS in Connecticut prior to becoming an accountant at the Grosver Nordale Company, where he rose rapidly. He soon became President A.W. Dimmick's assistant, and when Mr. Dimmick died in 1932, Meehan became company president. He remained the operating head until the company's sale in 1941. He subsequently became associated with Bayard Ewing in acquiring the controlling shares of Petroleum Industries Inc. from John Nicholas Brown. For a time he was also President of the Apponaug Company and its parent concern Mills, Inc.
Meehan eventually disposed of all his manufacturing interests to devote his time and finances of various corporations to the acquisition of securities in which his corporations were substantial investors. Meehan was also a former director of the Business development Company of Rhode Island, a private credit corporation formed to promote business and industrial development in the state.
In addition to his various contributions to Brown, Meehan also donated to the Providence Boys and Girls Club, Elmhurst Academy, Smith Hill Boys and Girls Club and Camp Meehan ? a summer camp founded in North Providence in 1956. In 1959 Meehan was State Chairman of the annual appeal by the Crotched Mountain Foundation for disabled children and adults in New Hampshire.
He was a member of the Rhode Island Country Club, the Agawan Hunt, the Turks Head Club, the Hope Club, the Dunes Club in Narragansett, the Point Judith Country Club, and the Metropolitan Club of New York City. He was a director of the Lake Placid Club, the Seminole Golf Club, the Bath and Tennis Club, and the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida, the Country Club of Florida and Gulf Stream Country Club.
George Meehan died of pneumonia on November 10, 1968, at the age of 74. His death was covered on the front page of the Providence Journal . He was married to the late Sandra Cunningham Meehan. He was survived by his two sons David and George V. Meehan, Jr, his daughter Carol, and his sister Mrs. Edward C. Gain. At the time of his death, Meehan had thirteen grandchildren. His first marriage to the former Helen Barnes ended in divorce.
The Meehan family's bond to Brown was kept strong through Meehan's son, David, who graduated with the class of 1947. David died on April 18, 2004, leaving behind a wife Phoebe (Trainer) Meehan, two sons, Scott L. Meehan of Park City, Utah, and David Meehan Jr. of Kennebunk, Maine; two daughters, Suzanne Beaudoin of Seattle and Gail Ransom of Seekonk; and seven grandchildren.
Meehan's daughter Carol married Andrew M. Hunt, class of 1951. Together they established the Andrew M. and Carol Hunt Scholarship for medical education at Brown. Andrew Hunt served as a Brown trustee from 1978 to 1992, as treasurer of the Corporation from 1979 to 1988, and as chairman of the medical school addition campaign.
Meehan Auditorium
The circular building, which bears George V. Meehan's name, was the first addition to Brown's athletic facilities in thirty-four years and also the first athletic facility to be constructed on the University's thirty-eight-acre Aldrich-Dexter property. Today the building is situated next to three other major Brown athletic facilities, namely the Pizzitola Sports Center (see Paul Bailey Pizzitola, BP 258), Olney-Margolies Athletic Center and Smith Swim Center.
Foster B. Davis (BP 259) was one of the driving forces behind the construction of Meehan Auditorium. Not only did he actively contribute to the building committee, but he also served as an Alumni Trustee and Chairman of the Athletic Advisory Council.
The George V. Meehan Auditorium opened on Oct. 14, 1961 and was dedicated at the Brown-Princeton hockey game on January 6, 1962. That evening Brown defeated its Ivy rival. Since then Meehan Auditorium has hosted numerous tournaments, including the NCAA Frozen Four in 1965. It stands as one of the oldest on-campus hockey facilities on the East coast, and is the proud home of Brown Bear Hockey.
Meehan auditorium is recognizable for its large doomed roof. The facility filled the University's need for a skating rink and large auditorium for indoor functions. Due to the domed architecture, there are no obstructed-view seats, making every seat in the house a great place to catch the action. The permanent seats are painted brown, red and yellow, the colors in the Brown coat of arms. For special events, chairs can be added to the rink area, bringing the seating capacity to five thousand. Meehan Auditorium was designed by Perry, Shaw, Hepburn & Dean. The consulting engineers were Nichols, Norton and Zaldastani, and the contractor was the Gilbane Building Company.
The auditorium lobby was given by Matilda Graubart Irving in memory of Dr. Julius Irving. The ice-making equipment was provided by the Burrillville Racing Association in honor of B. A. Dario.
The summer of 2002 was the first time the building underwent major renovation. The project included four new visiting locker rooms along with an enlarged and reconfigured lobby that included new ticket booths and concession areas underneath the south stands. The Brown varsity locker room complex, under the north stands, was completely redesigned to provide more expansive accommodations for the teams as well as a modern athletic training facility. Moreover, a new and more spacious Brown Hockey Association Room, overlooking the west-end goal, was constructed, known as the Davis Lounge.
The rink itself was significantly enhanced with new NHL dasher boards and glass panels, improved lighting, the installation of new insulated windows, and the painting of the interior dome. Additionally, the Brown Hockey Alumni created two new picture galleries in Meehan Auditorium to provide greater visibility and appreciation of Brown's hockey heritage. The team pictures, which were formerly displayed in the Brown Hockey Alumni's Room, were enlarged, matted and individually framed, with the members of each team identified on their respective photo. They were mounted on the East end of the arena. Prior to the opening home game of the 1999-2000 season, Mrs. Dorothy Cohn dedicated the Gallery in memory of her late husband, Eugene Cohn, Class of 1944. The second gallery includes Meehan's portrait. The stadium had previously situated portraits of Athletic Hall of Fame inductees and other key contributors to Brown hockey in the foyer of the varsity locker room. The new galley positioned the paintings more prominently in the West end of the arena.
The $4.3 million renovation project was made possible through the generosity of Brown alumni, alumni, parents, and friends. The Polland family, in particular, provided a lead gift of one million dollars. They, along with other benefactors, were recognized on March 1, 2003, before the Brown men's game against Clarkson. In recognition of the Pollard family's generosity, the Brown hockey rink was named the "Pollard Family Rink in Meehan Auditorium."
The Portrait
The portrait of George Meehan is one of a group of paintings commissioned to honor the guiding lights of ice hockey at Brown. It can be seen in the Meehan Foyer in Meehan Auditorium, alongside other portraits of Brown's Sports Legends.
The artist who completed the portraits celebrating Brown's hockey history is named Robert Franklen Aiken. Aiken, who also exhibits under Bob Aiken, is a self-taught freelance illustrator and landscape artist.
Aiken specializes in Ivy League college and university athletic publications, as well as work for east coast professional sports teams, including the Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins. He came to the attention of the Brown Hockey Association through his work for Darmouth College, where Aiken graduated in the class of 1962.
Aiken exhibits his work at Gallery on the Green and Vermont Fine Art Gallery. He is a member of the Southern Vermont Artists' Association.
"In my experience," Aiken says, "things are seldom as they appear at first. They are multi-dimensional and contradictions abound. Initial perceptions can be deceiving; the profound is often reflected in the most common things. Most things ? and people, too, for that matter ? are at once both beautiful and flawed. In my painting I hope to capture this ambivalence as well as the feel of the air and the unique quality of the light of any given scene. It is perhaps appropriate that my paintings are other than precise representations, but tend more toward the impressionistic."
Most of Aiken's athletic illustrations were done using pen and ink. However, his portraits for Brown, like his landscapes, were done using acrylics.
Aiken was born in Barre, Vermont in 1940, and his Vermont roots run deep. His ancestors moved to Vermont from New Hampshire six generations ago following the American Revolution. He currently lives on a dirt road in the woods in Vermont and concentrates on his painting full-time.
For other Brown Hockey affiliates painted by Aiken see Foster Davis (BP 259), John Rowe Workman (BP 262), James H. Fullerton (BP 261), Westcott Moulton (BP 260), and Joseph Castro (BP 309).
The paintings were commissioned through the efforts of Bill Corrigan '58, the executive director and treasure of the Brown Hockey Association. To recognize Corrigan's long-standing support of the program, as well as his roles as hockey historian and archivist, the University named the trophy case in the Meehan lobby after him in February 2004.