Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504220016
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The former chairman of W.R. Grace & Co. and adviser to three presidents died of cancer in New York's St. Vincent's Hospital, relatives and company officials said Thursday.
As CEO of the world's leading maker of specialty chemicals, the hard-working Grace was the longest-running head of a major U.S. company. As head of the Reagan-era Grace Commission, he was a zealous national crusader for cutting government waste. As a leading Roman Catholic, he hobnobbed with popes.
But he fell from power last month at the company that practically reared him, when major shareholders revolted partly as a result of millions in company payments for his chef, nurses and other lavish perks.
Earlier, chief executive J.P. Bolduc - who was streamlining the company - was forced out because of sexual harassment allegations.
The turbulence and Grace's death mark the end of an era for the Grace empire, which was founded as a Peru-based shipper by Grace's Irish immigrant grandfather and led by three successive generations of Graces.
As scion of the Grace fortune and chief executive officer from 1945-92, Grace identified totally with the company - perhaps one reason he tripped up over using company money as his own.
``He looked on the Grace company as his family corporation,'' said columnist Jack Anderson, co-chairman of an institute on government waste that Grace founded after the commission finished its work in 1984.
``I guess he had some trouble understanding that it was owned by the shareholders,'' he said, adding that ``he was certifiably a curmudgeon, but had the biggest heart of anybody I've known.''
Born in Manhasset, Long Island, on May 25, 1913, Grace started in the Grace company mailroom in 1936 after graduating from Yale University.
By age 32, he took over the company, which had expanded into aviation, cotton, sugar and nitrate in Latin America.
Grace took the company public in 1954 and began expanding into chemicals - the backbone of the company today. In the 1960s and 1970s, he also diversified into restaurants and home improvement and purchased a 56 percent interest in the Herman's sporting goods chain.
``You have to be big to take risks and you have to take risks to grow,'' Grace once said.
by CNB