R. Wayne Gilpin, 77, built Arlington autism publishing house

In a quest to understand and help his introverted son, R. Wayne Gilpin seized the inspiration he found in a single magazine article about 23 years ago and established the first publishing house committed to demystifying autism.

Arlington-based Future Horizons, which opened in 1996, has published more than 200 authors, some of whom have the developmental disorder themselves, and conducts up to 30 conferences annually around the world featuring experts and the latest information on the subject.

Mr. Gilpin, 77, was a fixture at the office until about two months ago. He died of bone cancer on April 17.

“He’s been a pioneer in the field,” said Lyn Dunsavage Young, who has worked 14 years for Future Horizons, coordinating the distribution of its books around the world.

“He had a gargantuan impact in changing people’s perception about autism — both individually and as a company.”

R. Wayne Gilpin was born Aug. 19, 1938, in Baltimore. He earned a degree in history from the University of Maryland in 1960, becoming an admirer of and expert on Winston Churchill, according to obituary information provided by Future Horizons and his family.

Mr. Gilpin served in the Army from 1961 to 1964. He was involved in politics, a lifelong Republican who worked as an aide to Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew, who later became President Richard Nixon’s vice president.

Mr. Gilpin’s decision to redirect his publishing business came almost overnight. At the time, he was a successful publisher of vocational books aimed at post-high-school students who weren’t looking toward college. It was a comfortable career for him, he said in a 1998 interview with the Star-Telegram.

“I’ll be frank,” he said. “The margins in automotive books are almost criminal. To print a book for $5 and sell it for $79 is not out of the question.”

His overriding focus, though, was on his teenage son, Alex, who had exhibited what now are telltale signs of autism. As an infant, he didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and his abilities to talk, crawl and walk were delayed. As he grew, he continued to be withdrawn, unable to connect with people.

Three different doctors gave three different, and erroneous, diagnoses — cerebral palsy, retardation and muscular dystrophy. Mr. Gilpin was frustrated.

Flipping through a magazine one day, he saw an article that included the common characteristics of autism. They almost perfectly matched the traits of Alex’s condition, prompting Mr. Gilpin to make his own diagnosis.

Confronted with a dearth of information on the subject, Mr. Gilpin wrote his first book, Laughing and Loving With Autism, in 1993, one of the first personal accounts of living with autism, in contrast to the clinical nature of most books of the day. Soon other authors sought out Mr. Gilpin for help getting their books published.

That was the foundation for his decision to sell one publishing company and start a new one.

“Back then, we didn’t know a lot,” said Dr. Jim Ball, an expert on autism and one of Future Horizons’ authors and conference speakers. Even now, many places in the world blame autism on “refrigerator parents,” he said. “The thought is that because of a lack of nurturing, especially from the mother, a lack of love, that the children reverted into themselves.”

What causes autism still is not clear, but the last 20 years has seen a phenomenal increase in the understanding of autism and how to diagnose it, Ball said.

In 1975, it was believed that about 1 in 5,000 children was born with autism. That number increased to 1 in 500 in 1995 and today stands at 1 in 68, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Future Horizons’ mission was to make the works of leading experts — and, through the conferences, the experts themselves — accessible to parents coping with autism.

“His focus on positive, readable, and accessible therapies from world authorities on autism transformed the world of autism, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including Alex,” the publisher said in a statement.

Mr. Gilpin’s daughter Jennifer Gilpin Yacio, who has been with the company for more than 20 years, has been named president, the statement said.

Dr. Jed Baker, who has had seven books published by Future Horizons, including Overcoming Anxiety in Children and Teens last year, lauded Mr. Gilpin as a family man and savvy businessman.

“He was the kind of guy who understood how you can do good for others and still be able to run a profitable business” Baker said. That makes the good works sustainable, he said, while some autism organizations and their well-intentioned efforts “come and go.”

Despite a rough start — “He had to eat a lot of noodles that first year to get the company off the ground,” Young recalled — Mr. Gilpin never looked back, he said in the Star-Telegram interview.

“I am truly blessed in that my vocation and my passion are in exactly the same area,” he said.

Alex died in 2008.

Other survivors include daughter Katherine Gilpin, stepson Brady Snowden and granddaughter Madelyn Rose Yacio.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 11:10 AM with the headline "R. Wayne Gilpin, 77, built Arlington autism publishing house."