News

By Rich Pollack

    BOCA RATON — Irving Gutin was a generous philanthropist who took the task of giving to his community very seriously.
    Over the course of more than two decades, Mr. Gutin and his wife, Barbara, supported dozens of local organizations including Boca Raton Regional Hospital, where they gave more than $6 million to fund three da Vinci robotic surgery systems and to help start a comprehensive stroke center.  
    “Irving was a man who had risen to the highest echelons of corporate America yet he was one of most humble, soft-spoken people I ever met,” said Jerry Fedele, the hospital’s president and CEO.
    Mr. Gutin, a resident of Boca Raton and previously of North Hampton, N.H., died on Nov. 6. He was 84.
    He is remembered as a man with a passion for making a positive impact on people in the community, said Fedele, a close friend of Mr. Gutin’s who delivered the eulogy at his funeral.
    “Irving was very thoughtful about where he put his money,” Fedele said. “He was interested in tracking his contributions so they could have an impact.”
    In an interview with The Coastal Star last fall, Mr. Gutin spoke about the effort he put into his philanthropy.
    “Giving is a tough job,” he said. ‘It’s a very difficult task to understand where your funds are going and to make sure they’re having the impact that you were promised.”
    A native of New York City, Mr. Gutin was a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In the early 1980s, Mr. Gutin became head of mergers and acquisitions for Tyco International and played a role in its growth from a company with $200 million in sales to a Fortune 100 company with sales of more than $40 billion.
    In the 2015 interview, Mr. Gutin said Barbara’s and his philosophy of philanthropy was developed while they were living in a small New Hampshire community, where charitable giving had a strong impact on the area.
    “We continue to follow that concept of giving today,” Irving Gutin said.  
    Mr. Gutin was an active member of Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s board of trustees, where he also served as head of the finance committee and was on the board of the hospital’s foundation.
    “He was a man of few words,” Fedele said. “When he spoke, people listened, because of the genuine person he was.”
    Fedele said Mr. Gutin was very humble, as is his wife, and was more interested in helping others than in receiving recognition for himself.
    In addition to contributions to the hospital, the Gutins supported Family Promise of South Palm Beach County, where they served on the community advisory board. The couple also supported several other organizations both here and in New Hampshire.
    In addition to his wife, Mr. Gutin is survived by his daughters, Nina Gutin and Cheryl Elliott; his granddaughters, Brooke and Alana Elliott, and Jamie Gutin.
    “I will miss him as a board leader, a personal friend and a mentor,” Fedele said.