Arthur M. Wood’s signature is on the last beam used to build the Sears Tower–an appropriate honor for the man who presided over Sears, Roebuck and Co. when the high-rise was built and whose office sat on the 68th floor.
A towering business figure himself, Mr. Wood guided Sears through highs and lows during his 10 years as a leader of one of the nation’s premier retailers.
Mr. Wood, 93, died Sunday, June 18, at his Lake Forest home of complications from pneumonia and heart failure, family said.
He joined Sears’ legal division in 1946, quickly impressing the company’s chief executive, Gen. Robert E. Wood, who was no relation.
“The general would embarrass him by saying, `Young Artie Wood is one of our bright young men and he’s going to run this company some day,'” Donald R. Katz wrote in his 1987 book, “The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears.”
Mr. Wood was sent on several postings during the next two decades–including close to five years in California as head of the company’s far west territory–before becoming president in 1968. His goal, he said in a Tribune article at the time, was “to expand on sales, improve our penetration and provide what Mr. and Mrs. America need and want.”
In 1973 he was elected Sears’ chairman and chief executive and he held those posts until his retirement in 1978.
Mr. Wood presided over difficult times at the mail-order retail giant, including sagging morale and reduced profits in a changing marketplace.
With Sears’ profits off 58 percent in 1975 from the previous year and its stock price plunging, he took an unusual step for an old-guard company like Sears, Katz wrote. He hired management consultants to help steer the company out of its lethargy.
“He faced a change in merchandising,” said his son, Art Wood Jr. “The whole catalog wasn’t what it used to be. He had to start thinking strategically about where merchandizing was heading.”
By 1976 Mr. Wood “exuded optimism … after reporting sharply higher sales and profits” during the company’s annual meeting, according to a Tribune article.
In Katz’s book, Mr. Wood is described as a gentle “old-world gentleman-businessman.”
“For almost six years, the soft-spoken patrician with the wild welter of eyebrow had served Sears as a chatterer to presidents, a testifier to public forums and CEO of the corporation with all of the grace and high-mindedness of a 19th Century diplomat,” Katz wrote.
Mr. Wood, known to family and close friends by his middle name, MacDougall, was demanding, but always gentle and kind, his children said.
“He was so naturally easy with public speaking, whether it was off the cuff or prepared, and had such humor and tact,” his son said. “He didn’t look for the limelight. It just came to him. He had natural leadership skills, like poise and confidence, without being conceited.”
Born in Chicago, Mr. Wood was the older of two growing up in Highland Park. He attended two years of boarding school in Los Alamos, N.M., where each student had a horse, and he developed a lifelong love of Western vistas and American Indian art.
He graduated from Princeton, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and captain of golf team (his handicap was 4), in 1934 and from Harvard Law School before becoming a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II.
When he returned to the United States, he married Pauline Palmer, with whom he raised two children in Lake Forest. She died in 1984.
“He had a very demanding job, yet he was home every night for dinner,” said his daughter, Pauline Egan. “I remember once being with him in the elevator in the Sears Tower. He said `Hi’ to [an employee], then the fellow turned to me and said, `You’re father is an amazing man. He’s the head of this company but he knows everyone’s name.'”
Other survivors include seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday in First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest, 700 N. Sheridan Rd.
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jbnoel@tribune.com
