Paul O. Gaddis died on September 11, 2019, at Brentwood, Tennessee. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1947, served aboard USS BOXER CV21, was ordered to Rensselaer Polytechnic for a Masters degree in engineering. There he met and married Martha Louise Rinker, a senior at Russell Sage College. He completed tours at Guam with the 103rd Seabees, Newport R.I., and the Naval Ordnance Plant, Forest Park, ILL.
In 1954 he resigned from the service and joined Westinghouse, working in atomic power on the Nautilus SSN571 project. He served as President, Pittsburgh Chapter, USNA alumni, was nominated by Westinghouse for a Sloan Fellowship at MIT, earning his masters degree in industrial administration. His graduate thesis at MIT about corporate accountability in the U.S. won the Dean’s prize as best of the year. His book, Corporate Accountability, was published by Harper. He returned to Westinghouse International in New York as Director, Overseas Investments, acquiring subsidiary corporations in Europe and Asia.
He moved to Westinghouse headquarters as the company’s chief information officer, then was elected Vice President, Corporate Strategy. In this role, he felt considerable frustration in being unable to convince top management of the future hazards he perceived in the directions the company was pursuing. He departed Westinghouse in 1972, was elected Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration at the University of Pennsylvania, where he learned the mysteries of financing Ivy League universities, and taught at the Wharton School.
In 1979 he was selected Dean of a new graduate management school at Dallas in the University of Texas System, serving there for 26 years. He served on corporate boards of directors, wrote articles for the Harvard Business Review, and was Editor of The Journal for Corporate Growth. He was President of the La Napoule Art Foundation in France, was elected to Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, played serious tennis and was an active Rotarian. His most gratifying work was teaching business strategy to MBA candidates.
His greatest joy came from partnering with Martha, his beloved wife of 63 years, in successfully raising their three children. He is survived by son Paul of Tennessee and wife Claire, son David of Washington, daughter Holly of New York, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
