Gordon Lankton: Founder, Museum of Russian Icons and Gallery of African Art, Clinton

Lankton

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Thanks in large part to its founder, Lankton, Nypro Inc. is a $1.2-billion business with operations around the world. Before it was acquired by Jabil this year, the company ran an employee-stock-ownership plan that allowed many of its 12,000 employees to benefit from Nypro's success.

Lankton, who ran Nypro from the early 1960s until about a decade ago, remains a powerful and influential business, cultural and community leader. He has kept much of his money where he made it: in downtown Clinton. In 2006, he founded the Museum of Russian Icons, located near Nypro's headquarters. The museum bills its collection of more than 500 Russian icons and artifacts, spanning six centuries, as “the largest of its kind in North America, and one of the largest private collections outside Russia.”

More recently, in 2011, Lankton founded the Gallery of African Art, also located close to Nypro's headquarters. In addition, he formed the Lankton Family Foundation in 1994 as a way to further spread his wealth to worthy causes.

When the Worcester Business Journal honored Lankton more than a decade ago with its Business Leader of the Year Award, one of his mentors, Robert Hoffer Sr., said Lankton's sale of his stock to employees “emphasizes the character of this gentleman that he built (the business) and literally turned it over to the (people) who helped him build it.”

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