Before Pac-Man was introduced to the general public and became a phenomenon in the early 1980s, James J. Barrett, then president of Bally Manufacturing Co., brought the game home to his four children.
“[The company] had no idea the success they would have, but my father knew it was a winner when it came up,” said his son Patrick.
Mr. Barrett sensed that the game, licensed from a Japanese firm, was a good addition to the company’s line, and he created a manufacturing system that fed the Pac-Man craze of the 1980s and kept up with a demand that did not let up for the next few years.
“We then got more volume sold. With the volume so great and the price so great it just spread like wildfire. … But we were also fortunate to have produced it in a period where the kids were just waiting for something like this,” said John Moody, former executive vice president at Bally.
The game swept the nation and led to others such as Ms. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man.
“We didn’t have any idea how this thing would really go, but it just caught on that the kids really liked it. We were all surprised,” Moody said.
Mr. Barrett, 67, of Brookfield, died of lung cancer Monday, Jan. 12, at his second home in Phoenix.
Born near Comiskey Park, Mr. Barrett graduated from St. Rita High School and joined the Coast Guard in 1951. During the Korean War, he served on boats that patrolled the Arctic straits, said his son Patrick.
After his discharge in 1956, he attended the Industrial Engineering College in Chicago and while working as a senior industrial engineer at General Electric he also taught at the school.
He married his wife Beatrice in 1961. The couple moved to Berwyn, then Brookfield where they raised their family.
In the late 1960s, Mr. Barrett joined Bally in Chicago as an industrial engineer and had a unique ability to simplify the manufacturing process, Moody said. In 1971 he became general manager, and the company expanded in 1975 when Midway Manufacturing was purchased and the video game component was introduced. A pinball machine division was added and under Mr. Barrett’s supervision a plant was built in Bensenville. By 1979, he was president of manufacturing.
“This man was very unique at setting up the production line in a balanced form and in the proper quality of assembly. He could just look at a product and know how to put it together. He was that good. He made sure that every increment of assembly was done properly,” Moody said.
Mr. Barrett also engineered and oversaw construction of another plant, Bally Grand in Las Vegas, that made slot machines.
Other survivors include his wife; another son, Michael; daughters, Kathleen and Noreen; parents, Peggy and Maurice; and five grandchildren.
Mass will be said at noon Saturday in St. Barbara Catholic Church, 4008 Prairie Ave., Brookfield.