GEORGE C. THORNTON III '62

Inducted: 1996

George "Muggs" Thornton is a Dayton, Ohio, native, where he swam on a YMCA team that won two national championships. He was one of the finest swimmers DePauw has known. His specialties were the 200-yard butterfly, the 220- and 440-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle. He held DePauw records in each of these events and lettered in each of his four years. He was captain of the swimming team his senior year. He graduated from DePauw in 1962 with a major in psychology and continued his education at Purdue where he earned two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in industrial psychology. Since then, he has been professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. He has published extensively and has been invited to speak and consult in numerous countries around the world. He has been chair of the CSU Industrial/Organizational Psychology Program and is currently president of the American Board of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. For the past several years, he has competed in numerous triathlons and, in 1994 at 54, began competing in the most strenuous of all events, the Ironman. In 1995, competing in Ironman Canada, he qualified for the granddaddy of them all - The Hawaii International Ironman - where he finished in just over 15 and one-half hours. He has been a community volunteer, a scout leader and a consultant to numerous profit and non-profit organizations.