Marian Krutulis: the educator

South Florida CEO,  Oct, 2004  by Jaclyn Alcantara

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"Let's just bulldoze it, Joe. I can't rebuild this," Marian Krutulis sobbed to her son upon viewing her southern plantation-style school in shambles after Hurricane Andrew pummeled Miami-Dade County in 1992.

Krutulis's Gulliver Academy, a private school for preschool through eighth grade, was severely damaged. Windows were blown in, four rooms were completely demolished, trees and power lines were down, and the baseball field dugouts, she says, were never found. But Krutulis's son knew this was not the end for Gulliver.

"Mother," he told her, she says, "when these children live for the next two weeks in the mess that we're all in, they are going to need stability more than anything they have ever needed in their lives, and you're that stability. Now you just get yourself up, we are going to rebuild."

Krutulis has been the stability behind Gulliver Schools for more than 50 years as its owner and top administrator. She watched it grow from one tiny schoolhouse to five campuses under her constant leadership in the face of adversity. At 81, she is still actively leading Gulliver today, and has no plans to retire any time soon.

Following her son's pep talk, Krutulis took to the streets, rounded up nearly 100 people looking for work and hired them to begin rebuilding Gulliver Academy. At five-foot-three, the tenacious redhead even drove a bulldozer herself. The school was up and running again within two weeks.

"The children tromped in, and my son had been right: they were frightened little people that didn't know what was going to happen next," Krutulis says. "They needed the calm atmosphere of the school and what they were use to."

That nuturing environment paid off not only for Krutulis and her students but for South Florida as well. Many Gulliver alumni have gone on to positions of fame, power and influence. Among the long list are US Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta, renowned pianist Emily White, pop music star Enrique Iglesias, and Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor.

Through the decades, Krutulis has built, rebuilt and maintained the Gulliver Schools literally with her own sweat and tears. Indeed, it was tears that more than once may have saved the school from failure.

In 1953, Krutulis went in search of a bank that would loan her the money to buy and fix up the original Gulliver Academy, which had fallen into disrepair. Women entrepreneurs were rare in those days and obtaining a mortgage proved to be more difficult than she expected.

"I went to every bank and mortgage company in town, and the minute that they saw I wore a skirt, their answer was no," Krutulis says.

Krutulis made one last entreaty to a South Miami bank president who she says told her, "'Mrs. Krutulis, we can't help you."' She began to cry. The sobbing was so heavy and persistent the bank executive pleaded with her to stop. She got the loan after the banker promised to guarantee it himself.

Another time, state regulators told Krutulis her school would not be allowed to open because a woman could not be the head of a school. Her tears and pleadings convinced them as well. Indeed, the men even worked overtime to get the paperwork done. "I think I learned at that particular point that the only way a woman gets something is to cry," Krutulis chuckles.

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Modern-day women might scoff at such notions, but anyone can identify with Krutulis' need to do what was necessary to see her dream survive. There was little she would not do for her children--the four she gave birth to, the one she adopted, and the thousands that have attended her schools.

It was that willingness that as a young woman brought her into the teaching profession. She had wanted to be a banker, she recalls, but started teaching as a favor to a friend.

Gifted in mathematics. Krutulis studied finance at the University of Miami when her friend Marion Hazlett, who taught kindergarten at a local school, fell ill and feared losing her job. She asked if Krutulis would fill in for her for a few weeks.

"I didn't even know how to potty them, and [Hazlett] says. 'You're going to be fine,'" Krutulis recalls. She changed her major to education soon after.

In 1953, after a few years of teaching, she had the opportunity to buy the small, rundown Gulliver schoolhouse in Coconut Grove. Pregnant with her second child, Krutulis worked all summer to repair the old schoolhouse, sometimes falling ill from the heat and the paint fumes. By September 1954, 150 students flooded in.

Gulliver expanded rapidly, and a second building was built in 1960. Soon after, the school ran out of room again, so Krutulis began looking for more land.

"I prayed, oh did I pray. 'Lord, please help me find a place for this school. These children need it so bad,'" she says. She eventually was able to buy land from Fairchild Tropical Gardens co-founder Nell Jennings.

Krutulis came up with funds by selling the original Coconut Grove campus and soliciting loans but came up $70,000 short. A wealthy North Carolina textile baron, who was having trouble selling off his land holdings in the then-remote Gables by the Sea, would give Krutulis her chance.