Phil Weld came from doubly old New England stock: his mother's family were Saltonstalls. (Massachusetts governor, and later U.S. Senator, Leverett Saltonstall '14, LL.B. '17, LL.D. '42, was his mother's cousin.) Yet he was "not the normal, quiet, self-effacing Yankee," says his daughter Eloise (Weld) Hodges '62 ('82). "He was a volcanic presence. He had very strong opinions and was impatient with those who couldn't keep up with him, or with complacent people who didn't have the vision to see what was coming down the pike. My father was always 10 to 15 years ahead of the moment. When he blew up about something, he didn't burn bridges--he bombed them." http://www.harvard-magazine.com/issues/nd98/welds.html