Building a Fuller Foundation: A Profile of John Bottomley '65

Bottomley recalls changing for sports that year in the barn, which Bradley Hall has replaced, his locker wedged between two twelfth graders almost twice his size. While attending Rivers, Bottomley worked at his very first job as a “car mover,” driving cars up the interior ramps at his grandfather Alvan T. Fuller’s revolutionary auto showroom on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.

 

Forty-five years after graduation Bottomley is still realizing his grandfather’s legacy, now as the Executive Director of the Fuller Foundation and Fuller Gardens where he has served for almost 31 years. Fuller was the first businessman to start bringing automobiles into the Boston harbor, initially for Packard and later for General Motors. He then turned to politics becoming the Lieutenant Governor, a Congressman, and eventually the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1936 Fuller created a family foundation, which initially made grants to serve the greater Boston area and the New Hampshire seacoast. Their funding focus since evolved to the more specific areas of children at risk, wildlife, and the arts.

Bottomley is particularly passionate about protecting wildlife and preserving animal habitats. In addition to his duties at the foundation, he also serves on the board of directors at the Yellowstone Park Foundation in Montana. He notes that his most memorable experience in his years of philanthropy came after the Fuller Foundation installed a kiosk in Yellowstone Park advising visitors on how to respond if they encountered a grizzly bear. Shortly after the sign went up Bottomley was hiking in the park and came across a woman who informed him that she had just seen a bear and had panicked, but had remembered seeing a sign “put up by some foundation” telling her what to do.

Aside from saving women from bear attacks Bottomley says that the most fulfilling aspect of his job is interacting with people who truly care about whatever cause they champion, be it providing art education for children or protecting the habitat of an endangered species, or as he puts it, “I am dealing with people who really enjoy what they do and aren’t just in it for the paycheck.” Bottomley is eagerly anticipating his return to Rivers for his 45th reunion and cites his years at the school as being some of the most memorable and happy of his life.