Requiem for a CEO by Ken Cutler

A former CEO of my old company passed away this week at age 89. Of the half-dozen or so company CEOs that passed through during my tenure, Joe had made the biggest impression on me. Of course, I was way down the food chain so my interactions with him were limited.

My first encounter with him was as a newly hired engineer for the Philadelphia Electric Company. The company had a program in which engineers were exposed to different divisions of the company during their first year. The program involved travel to a different company location each month. We would typically get a tour of a facility and then would be treated to a lavish lunch.

One time, they herded us into a bus and we went to Chinatown. At the posh restaurant we ended up at, we were served egg rolls, followed by soup, and then fried rice. Finally (so I thought) the main course was brought out. Everything was delicious and I was filling up. Next thing I knew, another main course was brought out. Eventually, we were served about seven or eight dishes, one after the other. I wished I’d known they were going to do that, because I had no room left to even sample the last few courses.

But I digress. Another feature of these gatherings was a keynote speech, usually during or after lunch, by the vice president of the company division we were learning about. To be honest, these speeches were snoozers, given by aged executives who seemed to ramble on. This pattern held until we rotated to the finance division. Joe was the relatively young finance VP, and his speech was unlike all the others. With amazing clarity, he regaled us with stories of clever financial maneuvers and other financial topics that by rights should have been boring. Although I had little experience in the corporate world at that point, I left the lunch thinking that Joe would someday be the company CEO. He seemed to be on a higher plane compared to all the other VPs.

I was disappointed when a year or so later, Joe was lured away by a company in Michigan to straighten out their mess. After he left, my company experienced problems of unprecedented magnitude. Management could not seem to get us out of the morass we were in, and both the CEO and COO were forced to resign. The Board of Directors reached out to Joe, and he agreed to come back, this time as CEO and Chairman of the Board. Long story short: Under his capable leadership, the company gradually emerged from chaos and even got a jump on its competitors in a market that was being deregulated.

Another encounter I had with Joe was a few years after he returned, when he held an all-hands meeting at my plant. During the Q&A session, I asked him whether the company was considering eliminating the generous defined benefit pension in favor of an enhanced defined contribution plan. He chuckled and indicated there were no plans to change the pension, due to the outcry that would be sure to follow. I’m sure he was telling the truth, but a decade later—after Joe had retired—the plan was indeed changed considerably. Eventually the pension was eliminated for new hires.

The final time I encountered Joe was when I was seated near him at a company re-branding event held in a conference center in Lancaster, PA. He engaged in pleasant small talk with the regular workers, including me. He came across as a genuinely good guy, not stuck up from his success or unbalanced because of a crushing workload.

Joe retired from my old company at age 63. He spent many years traveling the world with his wife and had vacation homes in Avalon, NJ and Vero Beach, FL. More importantly, he was a man who valued and prioritized his family. His marriage lasted 54 years, until his beloved wife died in 2013. From his obituary, you can tell that he cherished his family and, in turn, his family adored him. He had three children, eight grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.

Joe spent his final years at a CCRC called Waverly Heights, on 63 acres close to Philadelphia. I was curious, especially so given that CCRCs are a hot topic here at HumbleDollar. Looking at the website for Waverly, I saw that Joe had found a very beautiful and elegant setting in which to finish out his life. Of course, I was curious about prices. For a single person, an apartment there requires a one-time fee ranging from $313,000 to $1,242,000, depending on size. These are the no-refund prices. Monthly service fees range from $5,521 to $11,673.  There are also villas available there, for non-refundable fees that range from $791,000 to $1,453,000.

I’m sure that Joe, with his financial acumen and long-tenure CEO pension, had no problem affording Waverly. It seems he received excellent care and attention there. His death marks the end of an era for many of us who started our careers at the Philadelphia Electric Company.