James W. Cozad, a businessman who served as chief executive officer and president of the board of the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the early 1990s, has died, his family said. He was 88.
More Top Picks Best Desk Lamps For Students
Mr. Cozad died Tuesday, March 17, at a medical center in Florida and had been ailing with congestive heart failure, son Jeff Cozad said.
Mr. Cozad was born Feb. 10, 1927, in Huntington, Ind. He graduated from Huntington Township High School in 1945, then enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific toward the end of World War II. He piloted a Higgins boat during the Battle of Okinawa, according to his son.
After the war, Mr. Cozad graduated from Indiana University with a degree in accounting. While at Indiana he met his wife, Virginia.
Mr. Cozad joined Peat Marwick and Mitchell & Co. in Detroit as a senior accountant and also worked as treasurer with Philip Morris in New York. He and his family moved to north suburban Glenview when in 1969 he joined Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, later called Amoco Corp., as financial vice president. He then became chairman and CEO of Whitman Corp., a consumer product company that became one of the largest bottlers of Pepsi.
Mr. Cozad ran the company during a time of transition after its chairman died unexpectedly in 1989. Mr. Cozad worked at Whitman until he retired in 1992.
“For a small-town Indiana kid to rise to his level of achievement in the business world, at the highest peaks of the business world, is a pretty special accomplishment,” Jeff Cozad said.
Mr. Cozad served on many boards, including the Lyric’s board of directors beginning in 1986. He was the board’s president and CEO from 1992 to 1996.
During his tenure as president, he led a purchase of performance, rehearsal and office space and was instrumental in the campaign for a $100 million renovation. He also brought Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle,” four operas performed in different seasons, to Lyric starting in 1992.
“Without his leadership at that point in time we wouldn’t be the most revered opera company in the world today,” said Mary Selander, Lyric’s director of development.
Selander said Mr. Cozad remained an active member of the board after his term as president, serving as chairman and then chairman emeritus.
Richard Kiphart, now interim board president and CEO, worked with Mr. Cozad during his years as a business executive and at Lyric.
“He was one of the great guys of the world in terms of integrity, personality and smarts,” Kiphart said. “He was quite an incredible soul.”
As president of the Lyric board, Kiphart said, “he liked all people, and drew in the crowd.”
Mr. Cozard received an honorary law degree from Indiana University in 1982 and with his wife endowed the James and Virginia Cozad Chair of Finance at Indiana’s Kelley School of Business.
Mr. Cozad also is survived by his wife; two other sons, Mike and Scott; two daughters, Amy Challgren and Catherine; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled for April 7 in Palm Beach, Fla., and the family plans to have another memorial service in the Chicago area this summer.