Richard Worthing of Minneapolis, whose day job was managing millions of dollars for institutional investors, led a literary life when off the clock.
Worthing, a retired vice president and head of equity investments for Advantus Capital Management, a part of the Minnesota Life Insurance Co., died of complications after treatment for aplastic anemia on Nov. 19 in Minneapolis. He was 67.
He graduated from the Breck School in Golden Valley in 1959 and earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1963 and an MBA from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in 1965.
After college, Worthing joined Minnesota Life Insurance Co. of St. Paul, analyzing municipal bonds and becoming a portfolio manager.
In the 1970s, he joined the St. Paul Companies, founding its venture capital division. In 1993, he returned to Minnesota Life and its Advantus investment arm, overseeing portfolio managers.
Joseph Betlej of Mendota Heights, who worked with Worthing, said his creativity "made him special."
"He was willing to shake things up," Betlej said
He enjoyed writing poetry, and wrote more seriously after retirement, Betlej said. For several years, he studied at the Loft Literary Center.
"He got a lot of joy from his writing," Betlej said. "He would talk about it, and he would just light up."
Ron Sandquist of Woodbury, a former Minnesota Life colleague, said Worthing would get just as excited when an investment portfolio worked well.
"He was a very authentic guy," he said. "He made me and others around him feel valued."
In 1972, Worthing and his wife, Sandy, traveled around the world with backpacks. But one of his favorite views was sunset over Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis, near where he grew up.
He contributed a recipe for cooking bacon to a family cookbook that was more a family-social essay than a recipe, said his son, Dr. Angus Worthing of Washington, D.C.
He also had recently completed "Memoirs of a Sick Kid," about hiding his little-known illness, chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis.
His poems appeared for several years in the Hill and Lake Press newspaper.
Worthing played leadership roles in several professional organizations, including the Minnesota Venture Capital Association, where he served as president.
He was a former Breck School Alumni president and a founding board member of the Milestone Growth Fund, formerly the Metropolitan Economic Development Association, a venture capital fund that finances minority-owned firms.
In addition to his son, Angus, he is survived by his wife of 37 years, Sandy; a daughter, Kate Magozzi of Onalaska, Wis.; his mother, Patty, of Minneapolis; two sisters, Mary Thorpe-Mease of Minneapolis and Susie Mogan of Cohasset, Minn.; two brothers, Tom of Deer River, Minn., and Sam of Golden Valley, and two grandchildren.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Breck School's Chapel of the Holy Spirit, 123 Ottawa Av. N., Golden Valley.
