Kellogg Fairbank III was the descendant of an early Chicago industrialist who after his own business career followed his love of water sports — sailing, rowing and ice boating — to become Chicago Maritime Museum’s executive director.
Known as “Ked,” Fairbank took his role at the museum after it moved its operations to the Bridgeport Art Center along the Chicago River. He was an articulate and engaging guide at the museum and encouraged interactive exhibits that could capture children’s imaginations.
“His family is steeped in Chicago history, and he was just a natural to be executive director of the Maritime Museum because you really didn’t have to teach him much about Chicago history — he knew it all,” said Mary Ann O’Rourke, the museum’s communications director.
Fairbank, 83, died of heart failure on Jan. 1 at Lake Forest Hospital, said his niece, Jennifer Ames. He was a resident of Antioch.
Born in Chicago, Fairbank grew up on the Gold Coast and spent summers at his family’s home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. His great-grandfather, Nathanial Kellogg Fairbank, was a founding trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and founded N.K. Fairbank Co., which manufactured soaps, animal products and baking products such as Fairy Soap and Gold Dust Washing Powder.
Fairbank attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1963 from Harvard University, where he rowed on the varsity crew team. After college, he undertook a one-year fellowship in Sweden that included traveling to the Middle East and Asia to meet government and business leaders.
From 1966 until 1969, Fairbank served as a Navy officer in Vietnam, commanding a Swift Boat in the Mekong Delta and serving alongside future U.S. Sen. John Kerry, his family said. He earned a Bronze Star and two Navy commendation medals, his family said.
Fairbank picked up an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1973 and then worked for several large corporations in management, marketing and sales roles. He joined manufacturer FMC Corp. in 1975, and worked in Iran and later Saudi Arabia, where his work included selling Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Saudi Arabia’s government.
After a stint with FMC in the Philippines, where he was a regional manager responsible for marketing industrial chemicals in the Far East, he returned to Chicago. But not long after that, he moved to The Hague, Netherlands, where he was a senior vice president of business development for trash hauler Browning-Ferris Industries. He ran his own merger and acquisitions advisory firm in the Netherlands from 1994 until 1999.
Back in Chicago in 2001, he led a software startup firm, was managing director for a recruitment company and then was president and CEO of Global Alchemy Solutions, a company operating a waste-to-energy treatment plant in Chicago Heights.
Fairbank became the Chicago Maritime Museum’s executive director in January 2017. In addition to pushing for the development of interactive exhibits, he championed efforts to clean up what’s known as Bubbly Creek, the once-polluted south fork of the South Branch of Chicago River that is adjacent to the museum’s location at 1200 W. 35th St.
Some 140 years earlier, his great-grandfather’s company had used animal products from the nearby slaughterhouses that had polluted the river, thus leading to the creek’s name, Ames said.
“It was just the perfect job for him at a later time in his life, because it brought his career full circle — he became very involved in Bubbly Creek and water stewardship and trying to get the Army Corps of Engineers to help restore Bubbly Creek,” O’Rourke said.
Jerry Thomas, the museum’s vice chairman, recalled Fairbank’s enthusiasm and interest in finding ways for patrons to interact with exhibits, including placing a mast in the middle of the museum so youngsters could learn to tie rope knots, and creating a course on model building.
“He was certainly a guy who liked the water,” Thomas said.
Fairbank retired from the museum in 2022, but he remained active.
Fairbank served as president of the Harvard Club of Chicago from 2012 until 2014, sang with the Great Lakes Dredge and Philharmonic Society and was an avid photographer, his family said.
“He was intellectually curious and interested in things,” said Anthony Hume, a lifelong friend.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fairbank moved from Lincoln Park to Antioch to live with his longtime partner, Elizabeth “Buff” Winston. The two enjoyed spending time caring for their animals and gardens and sitting by their koi pond, Ames said.
A first marriage ended in divorce. Fairbank also is survived by two sons, Kellogg and Andrew; two grandsons; two sisters, Susan Taylor and Betsy Cameron; and a brother, Zeke.
A private service will take place later this year at Graceland Cemetery.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
