LAWTON, Neill B. 84, retired financial services executive, former president of City Ventures, Inc., in Beverly Hills, CA, died in Wellesley, MA, on March 5, 2016 after a long illness. A longtime resident of Los Angeles and Cambridge, MA, Neill was born in Minneapolis to Beda Esther (Brink) Lawton and John Edward Lawton, a Minneapolis city engineer. After the early death of his father, Neill graduated from North Hollywood High School and UCLA, where he was a prize-winning member of the first class of the School of Engineering. He was elected to Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. He served in the US Air Force as a construction engineer during the building of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. In 1959 Neill received an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Harvard University. In Los Angeles he worked for Lear Siegler, Computer Industries, Inc., and Security Pacific National Bank, as well as City Ventures. He was a past president of the Harvard Business School Club of Southern California.
For 53 years he was the beloved husband of Patricia Eileen (Payne) Lawton and was the loving father of Millicent Theresa Lawton (Louis E. Gardner) and Rebecca Amy Lawton Flatters (Christopher Lawton Flatters), and the devoted grandfather of Claire Lawton Gardner and Eleanor and Theodore Lawton Flatters.
Services are private. Donations in Neill's memory may be made to The Jackson Laboratory (Development Office, P.O. Box 254, Bar Harbor, ME 04609-0254), a genetics research institute that he respected greatly.