webnexuspro.online

Over the subsequent 4 years, gross sales greater than doubled. In the meantime, Corning blew billions of {dollars} on overpriced acquisitions of photonics corporations, supplying digital elements to information gentle alerts by optical fibers. Then got here a sudden drop in telecom funding that plunged Corning deeply into the pink and compelled an overhaul that eradicated almost 20,000 jobs. The inventory crashed to $1.10 in 2002 from a peak of $113 in 2000.

Corning’s board reinstalled Mr. Houghton as CEO in April 2002. The corporate ditched the photonics enterprise and concentrated extra on liquid-crystal-display glass for computer systems and TV units. Mr. Houghton put a renewed concentrate on high quality and employed a psychologist to educate senior managers on teamwork. Corning was worthwhile once more in 2005 when he gave up the CEO job for the second time and started heading into retirement.

Mr. Houghton died Dec. 20 at his residence in Boston. He was 86 years previous and had suffered from frontal lobe dementia for 11 years.

In 2002, having a Houghton again on the helm was reassuring for a lot of shellshocked workers at Corning, the place members of the family had steered the corporate since 1851 and oversaw an early growth in supplying glass casings for Thomas Edison’s lightbulbs.

Mr. Houghton, who as soon as described himself as “probably the most organized individuals on the earth,” sang hymns and present tunes, constructed stone partitions on his property, and wrote lyrics and poems for household events. He was identified to put on pink polka dot suspenders. He stored an residence on Central Park West in Manhattan and spent summers in Darkish Harbor, Maine.

James Richardson Houghton, generally known as Jamie, was born April 6, 1936, in Corning, N.Y. His father, Amory Houghton, served as U.S. Ambassador to France through the Eisenhower administration and was chairman of the corporate. His mom, Laura Houghton, was a director of the Woman Scouts of America.

Jamie Houghton studied European historical past at Harvard Faculty, the place he graduated in 1958. He began graduate enterprise research, struggled and left to serve within the Military and work for

Goldman Sachs

in New York. He then returned to Harvard and earned his M.B.A. diploma in 1962.

Whereas he was at Harvard, a good friend set him up for a date with Maisie Kinnicutt, who was finding out American historical past and literature at Radcliffe Faculty. She was anticipating a unique suitor and initially was startled to see a tall stranger at her door. Six months later, they have been married.

After finishing his graduate research, Mr. Houghton and his new spouse moved to Danville, Ky., the place he started his Corning profession as a manufacturing unit shift foreman. Within the late Sixties, he had postings in Zurich and Brussels earlier than transferring to the top workplace in Corning, the place he helped launch Corelle dinnerware.

In 1983, he succeeded an older brother, Amory Houghton Jr., generally known as Amo, as chief government. Amo Houghton went on to function a Republican congressman. Jamie Houghton, seen as extra hard-nosed and targeted on profitability than his older brother, shortly minimize prices and shed slow-growth companies, together with lightbulbs. He invested closely in fiber optics and different high-tech fields.

“We’re not a easy little glass and chemical compounds firm,” Mr. Houghton stated in a 1987 interview. “We’ve turn out to be extra aggressive.”

He frequently gathered prime aides for dinners with wine and cigars. “In vino veritas,” he instructed Fortune in a later interview. “There can be some violent arguments, however we bought to know one another rather well.”

In 1993, Mr. Houghton’s proper leg was crushed when he was hit by a automobile after stepping off a curb in Williamsburg, Va. He was within the hospital for greater than a month. “They needed to drill in and take the fluid out of the mind,” he instructed the New York Occasions. “All people says, ‘Jeez, what a horrible factor.’ And I say, ‘I’m so blissful to be right here I can’t inform you.’” He used a cane for strolling.

“This firm is in my bones,” Mr. Houghton stated after returning as CEO in 2002 on the age of 66. “I’m going to be strolling the corporate halls greater than you may think about. Even on my unhealthy leg.” Even so, he paced himself extra fastidiously than earlier in his profession. He aimed to go to Asia every year as a substitute of 4 occasions.

He prevented assigning blame for the corporate’s crash to any particular person. “Perhaps you may look again and say we shouldn’t have gone thus far in photonics,” he instructed Forbes. “We wager some huge cash on it.”

Mr. Houghton additionally was a director at

Exxon Mobil Corp.

, a member of Harvard’s governing board and chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork.

He’s survived by his spouse, two youngsters and 4 grandchildren. In retirement, he discovered time to take drawing classes and skim historical past.

Write to James R. Hagerty at [email protected]