As 2010 comes to a close, the Fairfield County Business Journal marks the passing of businesspeople who had a major impact on local companies and industries, including one who left a major mark on Connecticut but who would live out his later years in Georgia.
Robert J. Wussler, CBS and TBS
Robert J. Wussler, a star executive at CBS and later CNN, died June 5. He was 73.
Born Sept. 8, 1936, in Newark, N.J., Wussler attended Seton Hall University before joining CBS in 1957, working in the mailroom. Before turning 40, he would rise to become president of CBS and the youngest head of a network. Under Wussler, CBS created “The NFL Today” pre-game show that pioneered the genre.
In 1980, Wussler joined Turner Broadcasting System, helping to develop Cable News Network, CNN Headline News, TBS and TNT. With Ted Turner, Wussler helped create the Goodwill Games following Olympic Games boycotts in 1982 and 1986 by the United States and the U.S.S.R., respectively.
Wussler would go on to be CEO of Comsat Video Enterprises Inc. and of ABC Affiliate Enterprises, later serving as an industry consultant.
Louis F. Bantle, UST Inc.
Louis F. Bantle, who pushed the predecessor company of UST Inc. into the ranks of the Fortune 500 making Copenhagen and Skoal smokeless tobacco, died Oct. 10 of complications from cancer in Greenwich, where the company was long based and where he had a home. He was 81.
Bantle was CEO of U.S. Tobacco Co. until 1993, following in the footsteps of his father, Louis A. Bantle, who retired as CEO in 1972. As UST, the company would be acquired in 2008 by Altria Group, which subsequently relocated UST”™s headquarters staff from Stamford to Richmond, Va.
Bantle was born in Bridgeport on Nov. 22, 1928. After graduating from Syracuse University in 1951, he entered the Marine Corps and was promoted to captain.
Following his retirement, Bantle created the International Institute for Alcohol Education and Training in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Paul Kolton, American Stock Exchange
Paul Kolton, who led the American Stock Exchange, died Oct. 27 of cancer in Stamford, where he lived. He was 87.
Born as Paul Komisaruk on June 1, 1923, he adopted Kolton as his pen name while writing mysteries. Kolton enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, subsequently graduating from the University of North Carolina.
Kolton would go on to take a public relations job at the New York Stock Exchange, before being hired by the American Stock Exchange as executive vice president in 1962. In a decade”™s time, he would be promoted to CEO, and led the exchange through the debut of options trading.
Arthur W. Hayes Jr., Food & Drug Administration
Arthur W. Hayes Jr., a drug researcher who led the Food & Drug Administration during the agency”™s response to cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in 1983, died Feb. 11 of cancer in Danbury. The Oxford resident was 76.
Hayes was born July 18, 1933, in Highland Park, Mich., the son of the president of CBS Radio. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 1955 and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He enrolled at Cornell University Medical School, and after graduating in 1964 entered the Army Medical Corps.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Hayes FDA commissioner in 1981. The next year, seven people died in the Chicago area after ingesting Extra-Strength Tylenol that was poisoned with cyanide. Under Hayes, the FDA developed new guidelines for tamper-proof packaging that became the precursor for a wide range of consumer products. Before leaving the FDA in 1983, the agency would also approve an artificial sweetener used in NutraSweet and Equal. Hayes would become dean of New York Medical College and later president of E.M. Pharmaceuticals.
Mark Madoff, son of Bernie Madoff
Mark Madoff committed suicide on Dec. 11 ”“ two years to the day that his father, Bernard, was arrested for perpetrating a Ponzi scheme that cost investors billions.
The younger Madoff ”“ who counted a home in Greenwich among his residences ”“ and his brother, Andrew, ran the market-making and proprietary trading unit of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which was distinct from the elder Madoff”™s shadow operation. But there has always been speculation about what Mark Madoff knew ”“ and when he knew it ”“ even though the brothers have never been the subjects of a criminal investigation.
Recently, Mark Madoff had been trying to get his professional life back on track, publishing Sonar Report, an e-newsletter about the real-estate business. Still, speculation on his involvement with his father”™s crime ”“ coupled with a series of new lawsuits against several generations of Madoffs, including his own children ”“ reportedly weighed heavily on him in the days before he hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment at age 46.
Harold W. McGraw Jr., McGraw-Hill
Harold W. McGraw Jr., who led publishing giant The McGraw-Hill Cos. and subsidiary Standard & Poor”™s at the brink of the digital age, died March 24 at his Darien home. He was 92.
The grandson of company founder James H. McGraw, Harold McGraw was born Jan. 10, 1918, in New York City. After graduating from Princeton University, he served as a captain in the Army Air Corps in World War II. In 1940, he married Anne Per-Lee, who died in 2002.
McGraw was CEO of McGraw-Hill from 1975 to 1983. Authors in the company”™s stable at the time included Vladimir Nabokov, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow. In 1979, the company fended off an attempted hostile takeover by American Express Co.
McGraw”™s son, Harold “Terry” McGraw III, leads the company today.
Chet Simmons, ESPN and USFL
Chester R. Simmons, who led ESPN in its early years before the network would evolve into one of Connecticut”™s most recognizable exports, died March 25 in Atlanta. He was 81.
Born in New York City July 28, 1928, Simmons grew up in Ossining, N.Y., and Pawtucket, R.I. After graduating from the University of Alabama in 1950 and obtaining a master”™s degree from Boston University, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard.
After working for ABC Sports and then NBC Sports, Simmons accepted an offer to be president of ESPN just five weeks before the network”™s launch on Sept. 7, 1979. He left ESPN in 1982 to become commissioner of the upstart United States Football League, leading the league until 1985. Under his tenure, the USFL signed major college stars like Herschel Walker, Doug Flutie and Jim Kelly, but the league would fold in 1987.
Simmons later taught at the University of South Carolina, and lived in the Savannah, Ga. area.
”“ Georgette Gouveia contributed to this report.
