Industrialist, Philanthropist L. Harvey Dies

Lawrence A. Harvey, president of Harvey Aluminum, who took over one of the nation’s leading aluminum production firms after the death of his father in 1974 and directed it through a great period of growth, died Thursday.

The Southland philanthropist was 75 and died at his Los Angeles home.

At his death the Torrance firm, which Leo Harvey founded in the early 1900s as a family oriented tool and die company, was one of the nation’s seven largest primary producers of aluminum and ranked in the top 500 U.S. industrial manufacturing organizations.

With his affluence, Lawrence Harvey, as had his parents before him, supported many organizations. Among them were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, of which he was an honorary national vice chairman, and Technion-Israel Institute in Haifa, Israel’s counterpart to Caltech. He also served on the board of the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

Born in Ontario, Harvey attended the USC School of Law and passed the California Bar before graduating.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth, three sons and four grandchildren. Services are scheduled Sunday at 11 a.m. at Mount Sinai Memorial Park.