In Remembrance: A. Duncan Kidd ’53E, ’54MEng Died on December 1 2022

A. Duncan Kidd passed away at age 91 on December 1, 2022, in Jackson, Wyoming. Duncan was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on November 20, 1931, the only child of Alexander Kidd and Helen Elizabeth Mitchell Kidd. He spent his childhood in Nutley, New Jersey, and moved to Montclair in 1948. After graduating in 1949 from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Duncan attended Yale University where he earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering cum laude (1953), followed by a master’s degree (1954). At Yale, he was a member of Timothy Dwight College and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. He loved attending pre-Broadway musical theater openings at New Haven’s Shubert Theater. Enjoying performances of My Fair Lady, The King and I, and more sparked his lifelong passion for musical theater.

Duncan married Jean Hyde in 1955 in Montclair, New Jersey. Duncan’s service as a lieutenant in the US Army between 1956 and 1959 took them to Detroit, Michigan, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Germany for a year. After working with the Standard Oil Company of New York in Paulsboro, New Jersey, Duncan moved his family back to Montclair in 1961, where they settled down for the next 53 years until Jean and Duncan moved to Jackson, Wyoming, in 2014. 

Duncan’s professional career evolved from engineering to management consulting when he joined Case and Company in New York City.  He later joined Amstar Corporation where he served as vice president, corporate development, and later treasurer of that $1 billion company known for its consumer brands Domino Sugar and Milwaukee Electric Tools.

Duncan and Jean raised three children in Montclair, all proud graduates of the Montclair Public Schools. Duncan and Jean both served as tireless community leaders and volunteers; in 2014 they were honored as a couple with a proclamation by the Montclair Township Council. Duncan volunteered with the Montclair Operetta Club for three decades and was its chairman. He served on many other community boards, including the Montclair Volunteer Ambulance Unit, Montclair’s 1978 Charter Study Commission, the Joint Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, Montclair’s Senior Care and Activities Center, Unity Concerts, and the Yale Club of Montclair. He served as vice chairman and treasurer of the board of trustees of Mountainside Hospital, and on the board of trustees of Bloomfield College.

Duncan and Jean loved one another, their family, and Montclair and their many friends there. They enjoyed traveling near and far: the Jersey Shore with their young children, outings to New York City for Broadway musicals and the opera, many US and overseas trips, and visits with children and grandchildren.

Duncan is survived by his children Laura Couchman (Yale ’79) of Tucson, Arizona; Jay Kidd of Los Altos, California; and Carolyn Little of Jackson, Wyoming; and by six grandchildren and one great-grandson. Duncan’s children will gather in Montclair sometime next year to bury their parents together in their beloved hometown. Condolences may be sent to laura.d.couchman@gmail.com.

—Submitted by the family.