Gerald H. Trautman; Corporate Visionary
Gerald H. Trautman, a California lawyer who became head of the Greyhound Corp. and took over the much larger Armour Co. meatpacking operation, has died. He was 87.
Trautman, who grew up in Ontario, Calif., and practiced law in San Francisco, died Monday in Phoenix, company officials announced.
When the then-new Greyhound president moved to take the cross-country bus company into meatpacking in the late 1960s, Armour was three times the size of Greyhound. The competitive bidder was General Host Corp. But Trautman made the acquisition and went on to acquire Dial. He moved the resulting conglomerate, now called Viad Corp., from Chicago to Phoenix in 1971 in one of the largest corporate moves in history.
“Jerry was a visionary leader who created one of the largest and most successful companies of the 1970s when conglomerates were in vogue,” said John Teets, who was chairman of Viad until his retirement in 1996. “He knew how to bring out the best in people.”
During Trautman’s tenure as chairman, president and chief executive from 1966 until his retirement in 1982, he oversaw about 150 companies with 57,000 employees.
Born in Petoskey, Mich., Trautman grew up in Ontario, where he was high school valedictorian and a championship golfer. He and his father won the California Father / Son Golf Championship at Pebble Beach.
At Stanford, Trautman was student body president and helped establish the Axe Trophy tradition for the winner of the annual Stanford-UC Berkeley football game. He turned down an offer to play professional baseball to study law at Harvard.
Upon graduation in 1937, Trautman joined the San Francisco law firm now known as McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Emerson, where Greyhound became one of his major clients. With time out to serve in the Navy’s Adjutant General Corps during World War II, Trautman became increasingly involved with his major client and was named Greyhound vice president and general counsel. In 1966, he abandoned law practice to become president of Greyhound.
Trautman is survived by his wife, Barbara; six sons, Gerald Jr. of Orange County, William of San Francisco, Tucker of Denver, Timothy of Los Angeles, and Christopher and Thomas of Phoenix, and eight grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Phoenix, with burial in Ontario. The family has asked that memorial contributions be made to the Westside Food Bank in Sun City, Ariz., or to a charity of the donor’s choice.
