Mark John Anton ’51 died on May 11, 2006, in Short Hills, New Jersey.

Born on February 12, 1926, in Newark, NJ, he prepared for college at Careret School in West Orange, NJ, and served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946 as a radioman aboard a PT boat escort during World War II. He attended the New Hampton School in New Hampshire and entered Bowdoin in 1948, becoming a member of Chi Psi Fraternity. Following his graduation in 1951, he joined the Suburban Propane Gas Corporation in Whippany, NJ, a company founded by his father. He became president of the company in 1963 and by the time the company was sold in 1983, it had increased its annual revenue from $60 million to $1 billion. He sold the company in 1983 and retired from it in 1991. He served on the board of trustees of Phoenix Home Life,The Horizon Bank Corporation, and the Pittston Corporation. He was chairman of the board of the Orange Memorial Hospital and a board member of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, a member of the board of governors of Baltusrol Golf Club, and a trustee emeritus of The Kent Place School in Summit, NJ. He also served on the board of Trinity Pawling School in New York and was a founding board member of the Greenwood School in Vermont. He was a member of the Baltusrol Golf Club, the Short Hills Club, the Bay Head Yacht Club, and the Orchid Island Beach and Golf Club. For many years he flew a Piper Malibu plane. Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth Flower Anton, whom he married in 1953; two daughters, Elizabeth A. Dooley of Minneapolis, MN, and Susan A. Clancy of Chatham, NJ; two sons, Mark Anton II of Short Hills, NJ, and Christopher J. Anton of St. Paul, MN; and 12 grandchildren.