Lifelong mentor and a pink-clad maven of Italian shipping
| Obituary
Our April obituaries include the first Black commercial pilot, a former McKinsey global managing partner, the creator of the bedside sleep apnea machine, and a corporate-governance pioneer.
As we grapple with today’s challenges to diversity and inclusion, the hurdles overcome by the brave hearts of yesteryear seem all the more admirable. On paper, David E. Harris was the perfect candidate for a job as a commercial pilot, but when airline recruiters realized he was Black, they didn’t bother calling him back. After years of persistence, he eventually became America’s first Black commercial pilot. “It should have happened long before 1964,” he said. Cecilia Eckelmann-Battistello battled her own set of prejudices, rising from secretarial college to become the CEO of international container ship line Contship. She walked a historic path to the top powered by an indefatigable spirit—in her trademark pink stilettos.
McKinsey recently lost one of its own. Ron Daniel, who gave more than 60 years to a career at McKinsey and 12 as global managing partner, devoted his life to service. He embodied the consummate servant leader, both at McKinsey—working with clients, other partners, and as a tireless mentor—and on a number of philanthropic boards. Despite his busy schedule, he also espoused an early-to-bed philosophy: “Nothing good happens after 9:00 p.m.,” he was known to say.
Other luminaries of the business world we’ve lost in recent months lived rich lives, ripe with lessons for all of us on ambition, leadership, and enjoyment. Read on to follow a few of their journeys.
D. Ronald Daniel
Veteran McKinsey leader was a renowned mentor
Daniel served for more than 60 years at McKinsey, including 12 as global managing partner. He defined his McKinsey career as a life of service and a life of the mind. A Harvard MBA, he also served for 15 years as treasurer of Harvard. Somehow he found time to serve on dozens of boards and committees for institutions, including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Library of America, and Harvard and Wesleyan Universities. As a mentor, he refused to skim over problems. When you truly care about a person, he said, “you dig deep, you’re courageous, and really get into it.” He also believed in early bedtimes. “Nothing good happens after 9:00 p.m.,” he said.
Arthur D’Angelo was as integral a piece of Boston Red Sox infrastructure as Fenway Park itself. He and his twin brother, Henry, had immigrated to Boston from Italy in the late 1930s and later found a niche selling baseball souvenirs outside the stadium. From there they built a global supplier of ball caps and apparel with team logos. Arthur became a beloved fixture in his Fenway box seat and his souvenir store across the street. In 2004, the Sox awarded him a World Series ring.
Amateur singer’s dream inspired invention of karaoke
Singing in the shower was never going to be enough for Negishi, the Japanese inventor of the karaoke machine. As a young man, he became an entrepreneur whose firm made transistor radios and eight-track tape players. Although no Frank Sinatra, he yearned to hear how his warbling would sound if backed by an orchestra. So his staff wired a microphone to a speaker and a tape deck in 1967. Thus was born the Sparko Box, the first karaoke machine. Decades before selfies and social media, Negishi made it so anybody could be a star—at least late at night, in a bar.
Harris found it odd that he made history in 1964 when American Airlines hired him. He was hailed as the first Black pilot for a major US passenger airline but knew there had been plenty of earlier candidates, notably the Tuskegee Airmen who flew for the US military during World War II. “There is no way I should be the first,” he said. “It should’ve happened long before 1964.” A native of Columbus, Ohio, he learned to fly in the Air Force in the late 1950s. “Capt. Harris opened the doors and inspired countless Black pilots,” American Airlines said in a statement after his death.
CEO brought feminine flair to the world of shipping
Eckelmann-Battistello rose to be CEO of Contship, the international container ship line. She wasn’t exactly a shoo-in from the start, as the graduate of an Italian secretarial college who favored all-pink ensembles entering a male-dominated industry. But the founder of Contship liked her poise and sent her to run operations in Marseille. She worked in Rotterdam and other ports before claiming the top job in 1996. She ran things her way, painting some ships pink and climbing into crane cabs in high heels. The title of her autobiography kept with her lifelong color scheme, Cecilia’s Dream – A Pink Ship Across the Oceans.
Mechanical engineer helped millions get better sleep
The project McGinnis started on his kitchen table ultimately helped millions get better sleep—or even live through the night. Beginning, he said, with “almost no money and nothing specific in mind except dumb blind confidence,” McGinnis started tinkering with medical devices at home in 1971. Later, his company Respironics pioneered the production of bedside continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices, relieving sleep apnea by pumping air into the lungs through a tube attached to a nasal mask. An early prototype was powered by a vacuum cleaner motor. McGinnis’s confidence paid off: Philips acquired Respironics for about $5 billion in 2008. McGinnis funded a professorship in sleep medicine at Harvard.
Lawyer liberated Nepali girls who had been sold into indentured servitude
During a 1984 hiking trip in Nepal, the then-59-year-old California-based lawyer found her life’s mission: freeing Nepali girls and young women from indentured servitude. The Nepal Youth Foundation, which she cofounded, aimed to eradicate the traditional practice of families selling daughters into indentured servitude, typically for less than $100 a year. The Dalai Lama described her as an “unsung hero of compassion.” Her foundation has since rescued about 13,000 girls from forced labor.
“The Dalai Lama described her as an ‘unsung hero of compassion.’”
Sydell Miller
Entrepreneur transformed beauty salon potions
False eyelashes that stay on even in a swimming pool. Dyes that hairdressers can paint onto a customer’s hair. Such were the marvels Sydell Miller and her husband, Arnold, both self-made beauty moguls, added to the arsenals of beauty salons. Their strategy was to earn the trust of salon operators. “I love hairdressers; there isn’t anybody in the world who gives more of themselves to their customers,” Sydell Miller said. The Millers eventually sold their Ardell eyelash and Matrix salon products businesses and turned their attention to creative home improvement: their oceanfront manor in Palm Beach County, Florida, had nearly two dozen bathrooms, a bowling alley, and an ice-cream stand. Sydell Miller’s philanthropy included a $70 million gift to the Cleveland Clinic.
Imperial CEOs who insisted on absolute power and submissive directors met their match in Ira Millstein. As a revered partner at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, in the 1990s he quietly encouraged a corporate boardroom coup that led to a landmark set of corporate-governance guidelines. He wanted directors to keep CEOs on the right path and to look after the interests of shareholders, employees, and society as a whole. Millstein was also a civic leader: he helped revitalize New York’s Central Park and helped the city avoid bankruptcy in the 1970s.
When Popoff became CEO of Dow Chemical in 1987, he recognized that the chemical industry had to clean itself up. Popoff had an outsider’s perspective: his family immigrated to the United States from Bulgaria when he was about age 4 and set up a dry cleaning business in Terre Haute, Indiana. During Popoff’s eight years as CEO, Dow reduced harmful emissions, created a panel of external environmental-policy advisers, and promoted an industry code of conduct. “There is no alternative to environmental reform,” Popoff said in a speech in 1993.
Our June obituaries include former CEOs of Ford and Boeing, a mathematician-turned-trader who put quants on the map, and a Caribbean-born titan of francophone literature.
Our May obituaries include an internet pioneer, a Black ballerina who taught at the Bolshoi, and the first woman commissioner on the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
