Louisville’s ‘Bos’ Todd, national leader in mental health, dies at 93

Todd, a Frankfort native and University of Kentucky graduate, earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and worked in the investment industry. After his oldest son Sam was hospitalized with schizophrenia, he and his wife Joan, who died last year, joined with other parents to form the Schizophrenia Association of Louisville, now part of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

In the early 1980s, he joined attorney Philip Ardery, real-estate broker Malcolm “Mac” Matthews Jr. and Barry Bingham Sr., editor and publisher of The Courier-Journal, to found Wellspring as a transitional home for young people with schizophrenia. “It now has a $40 million budget and offers a variety of services to 1,000 people at multiple locations across Louisville, The C-J’s Andrew Wolfson reports.

Todd, Ardery and University of Louisville psychiatrist Herbert Wagemaker also launched the American Schizophrenia Foundation, which became the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, “the nation’s top nongovernmental funder of mental-health research grants,” Wolfson reports. “It has backed the research of more than 5,400 scientists in more than 599 institutions around the world.”

A celebratory visitation will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, at the River Valley Club on River Road in Louisville. Burial will be private. Wellspring is accepting memorial gifts in lieu of flowers.