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☆ Seymour Stein, Who Signed Madonna and the Ramones to Record Deals, Dies at 80
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Seymour Stein received the Howie Richmond Hitmaker Award at a Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. When the Ramones began rattling Lower Manhattan with jackhammer songs like “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the mid-1970s, many record industry executives reached for their earplugs. Seymour Stein heard the potential in what soon became known as punk rock. Mr. Stein signed the skinny rockers to Sire Records, a scrappy little record label he had co-founded a decade earlier and later sold to what is now Warner Music Group . Over the next 25 years or so, he signed a host of other stars, including Talking Heads, the Pretenders and Ice-T.

☆ Bernard Newcomb, Blind Software Engineer, Helped Launch E*Trade
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Bing Newcomb was mostly self-tauhgt as a software engineer. In the early 1980s, William A. Porter had an outlandish idea: People should be able to trade stocks via their home computers. For software expertise, he turned to Bernard Newcomb, a legally blind programmer who grew up in the small town of Scio, Ore. In 1982, Messrs. Porter and Newcomb founded Trade Plus Inc., a Palo Alto , Calif.-based firm that evolved into E*Trade, a pioneer in electronic trading that is now part of Morgan Stanley.

☆ Retired GATX Corp. CEO Found a Tricky Nonprofit Encore
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

James Glasser was credited with finding an accord that set the Chicago Community Trust up for growth and improved performance. After retiring as head of the railcar-leasing company GATX Corp. in 1996, James Glasser dreaded the risk of boredom. The Chicago Community Trust, which funds programs aimed at reducing poverty, provided a worthy perch. His work there proved trickier than expected, however. Relations between the trust and one of its biggest backers—the Searle family, heirs to a pharmaceutical fortune—had soured by the time Mr. Glasser became chairman of the trust’s executive committee in 1998.

☆ Taiwan Dumpling King Steamed His Way to Global Renown
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Yang Bing-Yi founded a global chain of restaurants known for soup dumplings. In the early 1970s, Yang Bing-Yi was a struggling seller of cooking oil in Taipei. As demand for his bottled peanut oil sank, Mr. Yang and his wife, Lai Pen-Mei, diversified in 1972 by offering soup dumplings and other Chinese delicacies. These treats proved so popular that the Yangs abandoned the cooking-oil business to focus on Shanghai-style dumplings and other food, sold at a restaurant called Din Tai Fung. Then the New York Times included Din Tai Fung in an article extolling 10 “top-notch tables” around the world.

☆ Edward G. Gardner, Co-Founder of Soft Sheen Hair-Care Company, Dies at Age 98
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Mel Zuckerman, Co-Founder of Fitness Resorts, Dies at Age 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Mel Zuckerman, shown in 2011, pioneered what is now known as wellness programs with low-calorie food, exercise, massage and a dash of spirituality. Mel Zuckerman ’s life as a home builder in Tucson, Ariz., in the 1960s and 1970s was so stressful that he often consoled himself at night by eating half a gallon of ice cream. Taking his wife’s advice, he tried going to a “fat farm” in Mexico, featuring exercise and vegetarian food. He was the only man there, found himself pathetically less supple than the women in stretching classes and left on the third day.

☆ Arby’s Co-Founder Leroy Raffel Dies at Age 96
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Leroy Raffel and his brother Forrest, in glasses, bet that people would pay 69 cents for a roast-beef sandwich in 1964. Leroy Raffel , a co-founder of the Arby’s restaurant chain who teamed up with his older brother Forrest Raffel in 1964 to take on McDonald’s and other hamburger chains with a much pricier roast-beef sandwich, died Tuesday at the age of 96. The Raffel brothers ran a supplier of restaurant equipment in Youngstown, Ohio, in the early 1960s. They saw that many of their customers, independent local eateries, were imperiled by the rise of national chains, some of which were then offering hamburgers for around 15 cents, the current equivalent of about $1.45.

☆ Steve Leuthold, Influential Fund Manager With a Wild Streak, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Investor Steve Leuthold had a second home, on Bailey Island in Maine. As a high-school student in Albert Lea, Minn., in the mid-1950s, Steve Leuthold led a rockabilly band called Steve Carl & the Jags, sounded a lot like Elvis and even recorded a few songs in Memphis. Later, he was known among friends as a tireless party animal. He owned a bar near Minneapolis, invested in a brewery and married three times, including once in a saloon. At his summer home on Bailey Island in Maine, he grew potatoes.

☆ Robert L. Waltrip, Who Built a ‘Deathcare’ Giant, Dies at Age 92
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As a boy living upstairs from his father’s funeral parlor in Houston, Robert L. Waltrip got early lessons in respect for the grieving. For instance, he learned that bouncing a ball on the floor was inappropriate when a funeral was in progress downstairs. After taking over that family business, he innovated. Mr. Waltrip noticed that his employees and hearses were idle most of the time as they waited for the phone to ring. His solution was to acquire more funeral homes in Houston and have them share personnel and equipment.

☆ Mary Hilton, Champion of Cloth Diapers, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Around the time that Procter & Gamble Co. was introducing Pampers in the early 1960s, Mary Hilton and her husband, William Hilton , had a different idea: They decided to go into the business of laundering cloth diapers. For the next 40 years, Ms. Hilton fought a valiant rearguard action against P&G and other makers of disposable diapers. Based in Kalamazoo, Mich., her family-owned company at its peak in the mid-1990s had about 10,000 customers in three states and more than 150 employees. Ms. Hilton, who took charge of the company after her husband died in 1978, became one of the biggest operators in a mostly mom-and-pop business and a spokeswoman for diaper-cleaning trade groups.

☆ Herman Stone Found Better Ways to Make Polyurethane Foam
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Herman Stone obtained two-dozen patents and was an expert witness on mattress flammability. Herman Stone , whose Jewish family fled Germany when he was 14 years old in 1939, adapted swiftly to American life. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Ohio State University and worked as a researcher for U.S. chemical companies. He obtained 24 patents, including one for a method of making soft foams used in cars and furniture. He was an expert witness on such matters as the flammability of mattresses.

☆ Morris Tanenbaum, Who Helped Put Silicon in Microchips, Dies at 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Morris Tanenbaum earned seven patents for his work on silicon semiconductor technology. One evening in 1955, Morris Tanenbaum ’s wife was playing bridge with friends. Dr. Tanenbaum, a chemist who worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, the research arm of American Telephone & Telegraph Co., saw a chance to dash back to work to test his latest ideas about how to make better semiconductor devices out of silicon. He tried a new way of connecting an aluminum wire to a silicon chip. He was thrilled when it worked, providing a way to make highly efficient transistors and other electronic devices, an essential technology for the Information Age.

☆ Nelson Rising Helped Give Los Angeles a Skyline
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Nelson Rising, who helped develop numerous real-estate projects in California, was known for finding workable compromises. Though Nelson Rising ’s college football career was short, it helped propel him from a blue-collar childhood to a glamorous career in real estate that transformed parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Rising attended the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Va. Rising returned to the University of California, Los Angeles, in the fall, his football coach told him he was too lean to play tackle. Rising eventually gave up his football scholarship and focused on his studies in economics and law.

☆ California Chicken Roaster Aimed for Global Dominance
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Albert Okura , who grew up in Los Angeles as a grandson of Japanese immigrants, had a simple goal: to sell “more chicken than anyone in the world.” He called that his destiny. Mr. Okura founded the Juan Pollo rotisserie-chicken chain in 1984. It now has 25 locations, all of them in Southern California. To KFC and other giant rivals, Juan Pollo is little more than a few crumbs on the counter. Yet Mr. Okura stood out as a marketer.

☆ David Oreck, Master Marketer of the Mundane, Starred in Vacuum-Cleaner Ads
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Company founder David Oreck started selling his vacuums to hotel chains in a plan for them to become known for durability. When David Oreck started selling Oreck vacuum cleaners weighing less than 9 pounds in the 1970s, rivals scoffed that anything that light must be flimsy. Mr. Oreck, a self-trained master marketer of the mundane who grew up in Duluth, Minn., responded by selling his vacuums to hotel chains. If Orecks could stand up to heavy-duty work in hotels, he reasoned, homeowners would be sold on them too. He ran advertisements showing a small, gray-haired hotel maid hoisting an Oreck vacuum above her head.

☆ Ted Lerner Built His Fortune With an Early Bet on Malls
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Ted Lerner greeted fans at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Nationals baseball stadium in 2006. After grinding his way through George Washington University’s law school, Ted Lerner decided he would rather sell houses. It was the early 1950s, and he was willing to put in 18-hour days. Home builders liked his imaginative techniques. One November, he decorated a model home like a giant Christmas present.

☆ Marianne Mantell Helped Put the Voice Back in Poetry
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Marianne Mantell’s company paid Dylan Thomas a $500 advance to read his poetry on a record album. Marianne Roney struggled to make a living in the early 1950s by writing liner notes for record albums and translating opera libretti. Men who ran record companies often asked her for ideas about what they should record—but rejected all of her suggestions. One day, in exasperation, she blurted: Why not poetry?

☆ Jerry Cox Pioneered Use of Computers in Biomedical Research
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-12 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As a teenager in Indiana in the late 1930s, Jerry Cox took apart a radio, figured out how it worked, and decided he wanted to be an electrical engineer. A decade later, after serving in the Army in Italy during World War II, he got a job at an acoustics laboratory to help pay for his electrical engineering studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Those studies led to a job at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, where he helped build a device to detect deafness in newborns and facilitate early treatment.

☆ Blind Software Engineer Expanded Access to Braille
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

John J. Boyer , raised on a Minnesota farm family with 12 children, was born blind and lost most of his hearing by the time he was 10 years old. None of that stopped him from setting up a basement science lab and aspiring to be another Thomas Edison . What did frustrate him was a lack of textbooks in braille. “When I was in high school, my physics book was older than I was and didn’t even explain what made the sun hot,” he would later tell the Wisconsin State Journal.

☆ Bob Born Found Ways to Make Peeps by the Millions
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Bob Born kept the company in the founding family’s hands in an era when most small candy makers were selling out to giants. The biggest opportunity of Bob Born ‘s career arrived as an afterthought. Just Born Inc., his family’s candy-making company in Bethlehem, Pa., bought Rodda Candy Co. in 1953. Rodda’s jelly beans were the main attraction, but Mr. Born and others saw potential for a tiny Rodda sideline, marshmallow treats known as Peeps. Long before handmade was a marketing cliché, they were squeezed out of pastry tubes by female employees, part of a process that took 27 hours.

☆ Economist Paul A. David Looked Back to See Forward
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Dr. Paul A. David, pictured in 1996, focused much of his work on studying the historical development of technologies and industries. Unlike many economists, Paul A. David wasn’t much concerned with finding ways to predict next year’s inflation or growth rates. He was more inclined to look backward. During a long career at Stanford University, with extended stints at All Souls College in Oxford, England, Dr. David established himself as one of the most influential economic historians. Much of his work involved studying the historical development of technologies and industries, in search of clues about how economies develop.

☆ ‘Sesame Street’ Co-Creator Lloyd N. Morrisett Has Died at Age 93
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Lloyd N. Morrisett set out to see if television could be both educational and entertaining for children. Lloyd N. Morrisett , a Yale-educated experimental psychologist, was surprised in late 1965 to discover that his 3-year-old daughter would turn on the television set at 6:30 a.m. and watch the test signal for half an hour while awaiting the day’s first cartoon. At a New York dinner party hosted by Joan Ganz Cooney a few months later, Dr. Morrisett mentioned his daughter’s TV fixation and wondered out loud whether there was a way to use television’s addictive powers to educate children while entertaining them.

☆ Ginny Redington Dawes Starred as a Writer of Advertising Jingles
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

As a singer and songwriter in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ginny Redington struggled to win attention in an extremely crowded field. When she began writing advertising jingles in the mid-1970s, she rapidly became a star in that smaller arena by writing a peppy tune for McDonald’s Corp.’s “You, You’re the One” campaign. Her greatest hits also included ditties for dozens of other products, including Colgate toothpaste and Holiday Inn .

☆ ‘Sesame Street’ Backer Lloyd N. Morrisett Has Died at Age 93
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Edward R. Pressman Produced ‘Wall Street,’ ‘American Psycho’ and Other Films
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( James R. Hagerty | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Edward R. Pressman, talking about the headstrong directors he worked with, said, ‘I sense their vision will produce something very special.’In a film, he might have been cast as a balding philosophy professor whose students strained to hear the quiet elegance of his carefully chosen words. In real life, Edward R. Pressman was an independent movie producer with a devotion to art films and an ability to find financing and distribution for productions others would see as too risky. The more than 90 movies he produced during a five-decade career included “Wall Street,” “Badlands” and “American Psycho.” Among the directors he nurtured were Oliver Stone, Brian De Palma and Terrence Malick.

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