William S. Woodside, 1922-2000

William S. Woodside was born on January 31, 1922 in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Lehigh University in 1947 with a BA in chemical engineering and received a MA in economics from Harvard University in 1950. After graduating from Harvard, he was employed by the American Can Company as its first economist, ran the Dixie Cup operation in Easton, Pennsylvania from 1962 to 1964. He later returned to company headquarters becoming senior vice president and group executive of the Packaging Division. In 1975, the board of directors elected Woodside as president and chief operating officer of American Can Company, and from 1980 to 1986 he was chairman and chief executive officer. Following his retirement, he became chairman of LSG Sky Chefs, Inc., the largest airline catering firm in the world.

Under Woodside's leadership the American Can Company repositioned itself from a traditional manufacturing corporation to a financial services and specialty retailing firm. Woodside foresaw the future of business in America as a service economy rather than a manufacturing economy. In 1981, Woodside sold American Can's highly profitable forest products and paper business to James River Corporation yielding enough cash to make acquisitions in the financial services and mail order catalogue and record business. The company bought a number of small insurance companies and the brokerage firm Smith Barney, Harris Upham. The can operation was later sold off due to difficulties for farmers in obtaining financing and over capacity. At that point, the corporation was renamed Primerica, Inc. In December 1988 Primerica was sold to the Commercial Credit Corporation for $1.45 billion. Woodside retired in 1989.

In 1982, Bill Woodside undertook the restructuring of the American Can Company Foundation. Until that time, the foundation had carried out a traditional giving program in localities where plants and employees were located as well as providing scholarship funds towards the education of employee's children. Woodside focused the Foundation's approach to three topics: hunger in America, the corporate role in pre-collegiate public education and economic transition in the workforce. Through his work with the Foundation, Woodside became a champion of the social responsibility of businesses and business ethics. During the 1980s and 1990s he gave many lectures on public education, the role of government in social programs, and expanding public-private collaboration of education projects.

Bill Woodside received honorary degrees from Lafayette College, College of New Rochelle and State University of New York at Purchase. He was awarded the Cleveland E. Dodge Medal for Distinguished Service from Teachers College of Columbia University. William S. Woodside died on November 15, 2000.

From the guide to the William S. Woodside papers, 1950-1993, (Baker Library, Harvard Business School)