Joseph Sutherland Wright, retired Zenith Electronics Corp. chairman, died of heart failure Monday, March 11, in his Winnetka home, five days short of his 91st birthday.
Born in Portland, Ore., in 1911, Mr. Wright was described by his wife of 10 years, Jane, as “an extremely affable and gentle man.”
He attended the University of Redlands in California and Northern Montana College and graduated from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., in 1937.
Mr. Wright was a Federal Trade Commission attorney from 1936 to 1952 with a break from 1942 to 1945 when the Navy called him to active duty as a lieutenant commander.
In 1959, after seven years with Zenith, Mr. Wright was elected president and later appointed chief executive officer in 1964. He was elected chairman of the board in 1968, served for eight years and retired. He was again elected chairman in 1979 and served three years. He was chairman emeritus until 1995.
John Taylor, a spokesman for Zenith, said Mr. Wright’s leadership and integrity will be long-remembered at the company and throughout the industry.
“Joe ran the company during the golden age of television and carried it well into the digital age,” Taylor said. “He really built Zenith into the leading television brand.”
Mr. Wright met his wife when she was working as a consultant helping corporations build art collections for their offices and took the retired chairman to have his portrait painted.
“I had great trepidation–I was a small person and he was a very large person,” she recalled of when they met. “He was the chairman of this company, and we ended up seeing who could walk faster down Erie Street to the artist studio.”
Mr. Wright’s daughter, Susan Wright Buchanan, died of cancer in the mid-1980s, and his first wife, Ruth, died in 1991.
In 1992, Mr. Wright married Jane Wright, who recalled that during their courtship, he would always arrive at the door with a rose.
In addition to Zenith, Mr. Wright served as a director of many local and national corporations including Standard Oil Co. of Indiana and Commonwealth Edison Co. Mr. Wright was a founding member of the group that formed the Electronics Industry Committee for Fair International Trade in 1972.
Mr. Wright, an ardent sailor, enjoyed the competition, freedom and adventure of the sea, his wife said.
He was a former commodore of the Chicago Yacht Club and raced a boat named “Siren Song” in many Mackinac races. He also sailed from Rhode Island to Bermuda, Miami to Montego Bay, Jamaica, as well as in other races with the Southern Ocean Racing Circuit.
“There was a Bermuda race when they had a terrible hurricane,” his wife recalled. “It was something he never thought he could get through, but he met the challenge like he always has.”
Mr. Wright is alsosurvived by a son, Joseph S. Jr.; three stepsons, Michael, Jeffrey and David Stroud; three grandchildren; and three step-grandchildren.
Services will be Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Kenilworth Union Church, 211 Kenilworth Ave.
