Kretschmer, Ernest T., 1914-

Biography

Ernest T. "Bud" Kretschmer is a philanthropist and civic leader particularly prominent in the support of classical music organizations in Santa Cruz County, California. He was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan, and studied the piano throughout his youth and during his first two years of college. After receiving an associate of fine arts degree in 1935 from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mr. Kretschmer continued his education at Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he earned an A.B. degree in business in 1938.

After his graduation, he operated a wholesale frozen-food business until 1941, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army. That same year he met his wife-to-be Jean while attending an Army Medical Technician's course. For the next four years he served with hospital units in Iceland and in the New Hebrides. He and Jean were married in Salinas, California in 1942, in between his overseas assignments. Having advanced to the rank of captain by 1945, Mr. Kretschmer then left the Army to join his brother in the family's wheat germ business back in Michigan.

Two years later, at the Army's request, Mr. Kretschmer rejoined and, after the U.S. Air Force was established as a separate branch of the military, he requested to be transferred there in 1949. While in the Air Force, he attended the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, earning an M.S. degree in 1951, and served with the Armed Services Medical Procurement Agency in Brooklyn, the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, D.C., and the Alaskan Air Command in Anchorage. In 1959, he was assigned to administer the Beale Air Force Hospital in Marysville, California, a post he held until his retirement at the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1962.

Immediately following retirement from the military, Mr. Kretschmer moved to Santa Cruz, and for the next two decades operated nursing homes in central and southern California. He also became actively involved in the cultural, and particularly the musical affairs of the community. A list of the arts organizations he has been affiliated with in executive capacities or as a board of directors member would include: the Cabrillo Music Festival, the Santa Cruz County Symphony, the Watsonville/Pajaro Valley Concert Association, the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County, the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission, UCSC's Crown Chamber Players, and the Barati Ensemble.

Mr. Kretschmer has a particular love of music for the piano, and is known for having established permanent music scholarships, subsidizing many concert presentations and performances, facilitating the appearances of many pianists, and working unceasingly to enrich the musical lives of both the Santa Cruz and Grand Rapids, Michigan, area communities.

From the guide to the Ernest T. Kretschmer Archive, 1927-, (University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library, Special Collections & Archives)