Spark

Just after graduating from Calvin, Charles “Doug” Gardner ’52 enlisted in the military—it was the middle of the Korean War.

Gardner’s son Brian loves the story of how his dad received his first assignment. “My dad had finished basic training, and he was waiting in line to find out where he would be stationed. When it was his turn, the assigning officer noticed his Calvin class ring and asked him where he’d like to go.” Gardner, who never expected to have the choice, attended clerk school in Germany and completed his military service in Europe. He always felt grateful for that Calvin connection.

After the war, Gardner earned a master’s degree in educational psychology and became a math teacher, a role he enjoyed for ten years. As many teachers do, Gardner spent his summers earning extra income for his family. His part- time work as a builder led to a career change in 1966.

Grand Valley State University needed off-campus housing for its growing student body, and Gardner was up to the task. That relationship led to the establishment of a successful business, BBG Corporation, now Campus View Housing, currently operated by Brian.

To get the business up and running, Gardner worked for free for almost two years, paying himself in company stock, while his wife, Joan Baker Gardner RN’54, supported the family as a nurse. “Growing up, my mom always worked,” Brian says. He also recalls the many summer hours he and his siblings clocked cleaning and painting. “It was truly a family business.”

The Gardners kept close ties to Calvin over the years. They were longtime members of Shawnee Park Christian Reformed Church, many of their friends taught or worked at Calvin, and all three of their children attended Grand Rapids Christian Schools and two attended Calvin. Brian jokes he was “the black sheep of the family,” attending Hope to play football, though he worked at Calvin one summer and attended summer camps. “Calvin was a part of the fabric of our family’s life,” Brian says.

Though it felt natural for his dad to establish a legacy gift, the circumstances surrounding that decision are still comical to Brian. “Dad didn’t want to be outdone by an acquaintance of his who set up a similar gift,” Brian chuckles. “When he heard a guy he didn’t especially like had given a million dollars to Calvin, he said, ‘I can do that!’”

In partnership with Calvin’s office of gift planning, Brian helped his dad designate an estate gift for the academic programs he loved most. “Dad wanted at least some of the gift to go to the psychology and math departments,” Brian says. The rest Gardner designated for Calvin to use as needed.

How far can one million dollars stretch?

As it turns out, quite far. When Gardner died in 2022, his legacy gift funded three important projects, including the renovation of a high-tech math classroom and the establishment of a psychology scholarship now given annually. As for the remainder, Brian says his dad would have been thrilled to support the new football program. “Dad was a big football fan—it’s why he let me go to Hope. He would have loved that his gift is supporting Calvin football.”