Melvin J. Gordon, who ran Chicago-based candy-maker Tootsie Roll Industries for more than 50 years, held the distinction of being the oldest CEO of any business listed on the two major stock exchanges.
Mr. Gordon, 95, died Tuesday in Boston after a short illness, said his wife, Ellen. The couple had homes in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood and in the Boston suburb of Wellesley Hills, Mass.
Mr. Gordon never retired, remaining involved in all aspects of the publicly traded company’s operations and personally interviewing everyone from the foreman level on up. Through records research, financial data firm S&P Capital IQ identified him in 2012 as the oldest CEO of any company traded on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Committed to keeping the company independent even as other confectioners have sold to larger candy players, Mr. Gordon managed the company through a slew of successful acquisitions. In the process he broadened the company’s product line from its eponymous single-bite treat and its sibling lollipops, Tootsie Pops, to a diversified confectioner manufacturing two dozen or so candy brands, including Junior Mints, DOTS, Sugar Babies and Charleston Chew.
“The growth and profitability of the company was something he was very proud of, and I think he was also very proud of the integrity of the company,” said the firm’s treasurer, Barry Bowen.
Bowen said directors late Tuesday elected Ellen Gordon as CEO and chairwomanof the company. She previously was president.
Ellen Gordon, 83, intends to run the company, Bowen said, noting that she and Mr. Gordon have kept buyers at bay for years.
“I’ve heard Mrs. Gordon say many times that the company is not for sale,” he said.
In 1962 Mr. Gordon became Sweets Co. of America’s chairman and CEO, and he changed its name four years later to Tootsie Roll Industries. In 1966 the company, then based in Hoboken, N.J., moved its operations to Chicago, the candy manufacturing capital of the United States, leasing a large one-story building on the Southwest Side that had manufactured engines for World War II bombers. Tootsie Roll Industries today occupies 2.3 million square feet at that location on South Cicero Avenue.
Under Mr. Gordon’s leadership, Tootsie Roll embarked on a variety of acquisitions, including Mason Dots in 1972, Cella’s Confections in 1985, Charms in 1988 and Dubble Bubble in 2004.
“He was very rigorous about analyzing those and making sure they financially made sense,” Bowen said. “It wasn’t just growth for the sake of growth, but he was interested in profitable growth. The interests of all shareholders were very important to him.”
Bowen recalled Mr. Gordon’s regular visits to the company’s plant to evaluate manufacturing processes.
“He was a get-involved guy who was very hands-on,” Bowen said. “He would be out in the plant observing operations and making recommendations for improvements, and then he’d be in his office working on a new display ad for a new channel of trade for the sales force. He’d just roll up his sleeves.”
Mr. Gordon also oversaw Tootsie Roll’s vertical integration of its manufacturing and marketing process.
“We have our own sugar refinery and our own ad agency,” Mr. Gordon told the Tribune in 1990. “We make our own lollipop sticks. We even have our own trucking company, the Tootsie Roll Express.”
Mr. Gordon’s wife became Tootsie Roll’s president in 1978, and the pair ran the company as a team, only proceeding with an initiative if both of them signed off on it.
“We try to have a hands-on operation,” Mr. Gordon told the Tribune in 1995.
Bowen noted that Mr. Gordon’s focus on building a strong team meant that “the people in the company are people that he personally hired.”
“I feel as a result of that we have a strong management team to carry on the legacy that he built,” Bowen said. “He did more from age 75 until 95 than most men do in their lifetimes.”
Mr. Gordon’s leadership was not without its critics. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal published an article noting shrinking profit margins at Tootsie Roll and criticizing its practice of not holding quarterly earnings calls and refusing to speak with journalists.
The company’s most recent results from October show Tootsie Roll earned about $45 million in the first nine months of 2014 on sales of about $402 million.
News of Mr. Gordon’s death sent shares up 7.1 percent to close at $32.99, which analysts said was fueled by speculation that a sale could be possible.
Mergers and acquisitions have been prolific in the confectionary industry in recent years as candy and snack food producers have sought to broaden their brands and expand into new markets.
In 2008, candy giant Mars Inc. bought Chicago icon William Wrigley Co. for $23 billion. Two years later, Kraft Foods bought Cadbury for $19 billion. And in 2014, Hershey bought Canadian candy-maker Brookside Foods.
With high growth and high margins, candy-makers are attractive candidates for buyers looking to boost their bottom lines.
“Confectionary is considered to be an affordable luxury, which is why brands are so prevalent,” said Erin Lash, senior equity analyst at Morningstar.
But for years Tootsie Roll has withstood pressure from buyers. “Mrs. Gordon always felt our best prospects were to remain independent, and … our company has grown,” Bowen said.
The couple could maintain their independence because they control large blocks of company stock. Together, the Gordons hold more than 80 percent of the company’s Class B shares, each of which counts for 10 votes compared with one vote for each share of common stock. They also owned about 49 percent of the common shares.
In 1989, Mr. Gordon and his wife told Forbes magazine that they intended to eventually hand the company over to their children.
Bowen declined to say if the Gordons’ daughters would become more involved in the company.
Born in Boston, Mr. Gordon attended prep school at Rivers Country Day School in Brookline, Mass., where he played on five varsity sports teams and was the captain of two, according to a biography provided by the company.
Mr. Gordon received a bachelor’s degree in 1941 from Harvard College, where he played varsity football. He attended Harvard Business School before serving in the Army at Camp Lee in Virginia during World War II.
While in the Army, Mr. Gordon edited the Quartermaster Journal, which was sent to quartermasters stationed around the world. He wrote an article for the publication explaining the concept of placing trailers onto railroad flatcars, the family biography said.
After his discharge, Mr. Gordon became CEO of Hampshire Designers, a publicly traded women’s apparel company based in New Hampshire. In 1950 he married a young Vassar College student, Ellen Rubin, whose father was president of Sweets Co. of America, a confectioner founded in 1896 that made Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops. Mr. Gordon became a board member two years later.
Outside of work, Mr. Gordon took an interest in what then was the Soviet Union. He visited the country with his family in 1934, and in the 1950s he wrote a book titled, “Better Than Communism.”
Mr. Gordon and his wife donated $25 million in 2006 to the University of Chicago toward the cost of a new $200 million science building at 929 E. 57th St. on its Hyde Park campus. The university named the building the Gordon Center for Integrative Science.
Mr. Gordon also served on the board of the Rensselaerville Institute, a New York-based think tank. Also, across more than 70 years, he wrote some 65 big band jazz songs, many of which he recorded.
Mr. Gordon is also survived by four daughters, Wendy, Virginia, Karen Gordon Mills, who served as the former U.S. Small Business Administration administrator from 2009 until 2013, and Lisa, and six grandchildren.
No information on services was immediately available.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance writer. Corilyn Shropshire is a staff reporter for the Tribune.
crshropshire@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @corilyns
