The Wall Street Journal - 14.03.2020 - 15.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, March 14 - 15, 2020 |A

“You know what politics is, don’t

you?” he asked a Buffalo News re-

porter. “It’s theater for ugly peo-

ple.”

Amory Houghton Jr., known as

Amo, was born Aug. 7, 1926, in

Corning. His father, who served as

U.S. ambassador to France during

the Eisenhower administration,

was the fourth-generation chair-

man of the company, which sup-

plied glass casings for Thomas Edi-

son’s light bulbs in the 19th

century.

A

fter graduating early from

high school, Mr. Houghton

enlisted in the Marines and

served during the final year of

World War II without seeing com-

bat. He then enrolled at Harvard

University, where he studied his-

tory and earned a bachelor’s de-

gree, followed by an M.B.A. degree

in 1952.

He considered becoming an

Episcopal priest, a route later fol-

lowed by one of his younger broth-

ers. Instead, he joined Corning,

where he served initially as an ac-

countant and later as a manufac-

turing foreman and sales manager.

He became president of the

company in 1961 and succeeded his

father as chairman and chief exec-

utive in 1964.

After recovering in the late

1970s, Corning profits dropped

again amid recession in the early

1980s. In 1983, at age 56, he gave

up the top jobs at Corning, making

way for his brother James, consid-

ered more hard-nosed and focused

on profitability.

Amory Houghton traveled in Af-

rica and considered becoming an

Episcopal missionary in Zimbabwe.

He dropped that idea when the Re-

publican Party saw an opportunity

to regain the congressional seat in

his home district in 1986. After

winning the seat with more than

60% of the vote, he established

himself as a centrist, eager to work

with Democrats as well as Republi-

cans.

In 2004, he completed 18 years

in Congress after declining to seek

another term and declaring his po-

litical record modest. He devoted

part of his time to volunteering for

the Episcopal Church.

He served as a director of Inter-

national Business Machines Corp.,

Citicorp and Procter & Gamble Co.,

among others. He played the

drums in a jazz band called the

Swing Voters.

Mr. Houghton’s first marriage

ended in divorce. His second wife,

the former Priscilla Blackett

Dewey, died in 2012. His survivors

include a brother, four children,

and nine grandchildren.

Stanley Lundine, a Democrat

who preceded Mr. Houghton as the

U.S. representative for their South-

ern Tier district, recalled attending

a banquet in Corning when Mr.

Houghton was CEO of Corning.

Both men gave speeches. After-

ward, Mr. Houghton popped into

the kitchen to thank the food-ser-

vice workers. “I thought, here I am

a congressman and I’m not think-

ing about that,” Mr. Lundine said.

 Read a collection of in-depth

profiles atWSJ.com/Obituaries

AMORY HOUGHTON

1926 — 2020

Executive Lifted Corning

With Bet on Fiber Optics

W

hen Amory Houghton be-

came chief executive of

Corning Glass Works in

1964, the company founded by his

great-great-grandfather was thriv-

ing. Known to the general public

for Pyrex measuring cups and

Corning Ware casseroles, it domi-

nated the U.S. market for the glass

used to encase TV tubes.

But the company, now known as

Corning Inc., proved too reliant on

those tubes, which accounted for

as much as 75% of profit. In the

mid-1970s, the company faced a

recessionandthelossofTV-re-

lated business as Japanese imports

captured the U.S. market. Profits

collapsed, and Mr. Houghton had

to chop costs, including at the

headquarters in Corning, N.Y. The

global workforce dropped by more

than one-third.

Mr. Houghton, who died March

4 at age 93, said in a 1977 inter-

view with Forbes that he should

have been fired for letting the

company drift into financial peril.

“It was tough making these cuts,”

he said, “particularly when you

lived in a small town where you

knew a lot of these people.”

Corning bounced back, unlike

many other U.S. manufacturing gi-

ants. That was partly because Mr.

Houghton made a long-term com-

mitment to development of fiber

optics. He correctly saw that hair-

thin strands of glass would replace

copper wire in transmissions of

voice and data. “It’s our turf, with

our patents,” he said.

By the late 1990s, optical fiber

and related telecommunications

products accounted for more than

half of Corning’s operating profits.

After stepping down as CEO, Mr.

Houghton served as a Republican

congressman representing the

Southern Tier region of New York

state. He had a self-deprecating

sense of humor and a habit of

laughing, loudly, at his own quips.

BYJAMESR.HAGERTY

WHITNEY MACMILLAN

1929—

Cargill Leader Built

A Global Food Giant

W

hitney MacMillan, rely-
ing on pragmatism and
endless curiosity about
how the world feeds itself, trans-
formed Cargill Inc. from a North
American grain trader into a
global food colossus.
The last member of the Cargill-
MacMillan families to head the
privately owned food giant, Mr.
MacMillan for decades traveled
the globe, sowing new Cargill
mills, ports and processing facili-
ties across South America, Eu-
rope and Asia. During his tenure
as chief executive from 1976 to
1995, he raised a generation of
nonfamily managers to take con-
trol of the Minnesota-based com-
pany when he reached Cargill’s
mandatory retirement age of 65.
Mr. MacMillan, who died

March 11 at the age of 90, ex-

panded Cargill’s reach. He dealt

in new commodities like beef and

cocoa while quadrupling the com-

pany’s number of employees to

about 80,000 and nearly doubling

the number of countries in which

Cargill did business.

As Cargill grew to become one

of the world’s largest companies—

its sales totaled $113.5 billion in

2019—Mr. MacMillan remained

frugal. He drove an aging station

wagon to the French-style man-

sion that Cargill for decades used

as its headquarters in a wooded

Minneapolis suburb. There he

would ponder how changing

global demographics might affect

food production—and occasionally

dive into agricultural minutia.

—Jacob Bunge

PEREGRINE POLLEN

1931—

Englishman Added

Flair to Auctions

P

eregrine Pollen worked as a
Latin teacher, attendant in
a mental hospital and night-
club organist before settling into
a career at the Sotheby’s auction
house.
Sotheby’s, then based in Lon-
don, in 1960 sent the Oxford-edu-
cated Mr. Pollen—an Englishman
known for wearing cowboy boots,
including, on occasion, while
playing tennis—to New York to
represent the auction firm. Four
years later, he oversaw the acqui-
sition of Parke-Bernet Galleries, a
New York-based rival.
Mr. Pollen ran the combined
New York business and brought
theatrical flair to auctions. In
1967, Parke-Bernet auctioned
coins and other treasures sal-
vaged from Spanish ships that

sank off Florida during a storm in

1715. Mr. Pollen found a talking
      macaw to enliven the proceedings
      and projected silhouettes of ships
      on a wall behind the podium.
      He once rolled up four impres-
      sionist paintings inside a Beatles
      poster to smuggle them out of
      Buenos Aires.
      To expand the clientele for
      auctions, Mr. Pollen opened a dis-
      count outlet, PB 84, on East 84th
      Street in Manhattan. Sales were
      aimed at young couples furnish-
      ing their homes. In 1968, PB 84
      sold a set of 15 glasses for $1.
      After retiring, he planted more
      than 6,000 trees at Norton Hall, a
      family estate in the Cotswolds
      area of England. He died Feb. 18
      at age 89.
      —James R. Hagerty

OBITUARIES

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