Celebrate Excellence

“I enjoy working with nonprofit organizations and assisting in directing and making grants to worthwhile causes. I do it because it gives me the opportunity to meet with people from every aspect of life and try to meet their needs.”

William T. Gaus , Arts ’51, Law ’54 and recipient of the Alumni Service to Marquette Award, has worked tirelessly for several nonprofit organizations in southeastern Wisconsin. The retired senior vice president of Marshall & Ilsley Trust Co. in Milwaukee, worked for M&I for 47 years and has devoted his time to directing funds to make peoples’ lives better.

“I enjoy working with nonprofit organizations and assisting in directing and making grants to worthwhile causes,” he says. “I do it because it gives me the opportunity to meet with people from every aspect of life and try to meet their needs.”

Since the late 1940s, Marquette University has also benefited from his devotion. Gaus has served Marquette as a member of the Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity, Crown and Anchor Literary Society, Law School Reunion Committee, Campaign for Marquette, President’s Executive Senate, and an adviser emeritus of the Marquette University Gift and Estate Planning Advisory Committee.

He is president of the Albert J. and Flora H. Ellinger Foundation; trustee of the Evan and Marion Helfaer Foundation; director of the Mary Martha and Emmett J. Doerr Charitable Trust; and a director of the Columbia St. Mary’s Health System.

He also is former vice president of the Walter Schroeder Foundation and has served on numerous boards and councils of nonprofits, including the Milwaukee Catholic Home, United Performing Arts Fund and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Neighborhood House, an inner-city nonprofit, presented Gaus with its Man of the Year Award.