“Unless (business leaders) meet the needs of the total community,” you have said, “we cannot have a good society and a healthy society.” This insight has guided your remarkable career both inside and outside the corporate boardroom. As president, and then chairman and chief executive officer of Eaton Corp., where you began work as a production clerk in 1941, you led that company’s growth into a multi-billion dollar operation with international reach, while encouraging all of its executives to get involved with their local communities. Your own actions, however, spoke even louder than your words, and you invested extraordinary amounts of time and energy into the well-being of your own community. The City of Cleveland will long remember you as the man who, as chair of the Commission on Health and Social Services, assessed the need for improved health and social programs, who consolidated all of that area’s major fund raising drives into one of the most effective United Way programs in the country, and who, while the city fought back from bankruptcy, organized and oversaw the task force of local executives that identified and implemented more than 500 efficiencies in city operations. For these, and for many other contributions to the return to health of that community you have received the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Man of the Year Award, the Human Relations Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and Industry Week’s Excellence in Management Award—none of them, however, presented with more pride and satisfaction than this recognition from your alma mater. In recognition of your distinguished achievement in the fields of industry and community service, Williams College is proud to present you with its Bicentennial Medal.
Megamenu Social