Alameda County

Biographies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAURICE GALLISON READ

 

 

Maurice Gallison Read, president of Mason-McDuffie Company, Realtors, was born in Old Town, Maine, on March 17, 1905. Son of Dean Swift and Mary Burnham (Gallison) Read.

      After graduating from grammar and high schools in Orono, Maine, he attended University of California from which he graduated in 1929 with the Bachelor of Science degree.  

      Mr. Read began his career in the real estate business as a salesman with Mason-McDuffie Company in Berkeley, California, becoming sales manager in 1934, partner in 1936, and has been president and general manager since 1951.

      Mr. Read was president of the Berkeley Realty Board in 1939; president of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce in 1940; president of the Alameda City Taxpayers Association, 1943-44; president of Associated Home Builders of Greater East Bay, 1944-45; chairman of San Francisco Bay Area Council in 1946; president of California Real Estate Association in 1945; director of National Association of Real Estate Boards since 1945, also regional vice president of same for 1952.

      He holds membership in the Berkeley Lions Club and the Berkeley Elks Club,

      In 1934 he married Rosa M. Wyeth and was divorced in 1950; children: Charlene Morae Read and Marjorie Louise Huber.

      As a hobby he continues to act as head usher for all athletic events at the University of California, a position he has held since his college days. Mr. Read developed the idea of using high school student ushers working under the direction of their physical education director or coach, rather than University students. This has greatly increased the efficiency, and substantially reduced the cost of ushering athletic events. Now approximately 1000 high school boys work on each of the six or seven reserve seat games played each year in the California Stadium. Practically every University on the Pacific Coast has copied and now uses the ushering system developed by Read.

      Residence: 2421 Russell Street, Berkeley, California.

      Office: 2101 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley 4, California.

 

 

 

 

Transcribed by Marie Hassard 02 March 2014.

­­Source: Eminent Californians 1953, by Lee E. Johnson & C. W. Taylor. Page 183, C. W. Taylor Publ., Palo Alto, California, 1953.

© 2014  Marie Hassard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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