John Lloyd Huck (July 17, 1922 – December 4, 2012 ) was a

business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations g ...

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

, and

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

enthusiast. He was chairman of

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...

firms Merck & Co. and Nova Pharmaceutical Corporation, as well as

Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company The Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company was a life insurance company that was chartered in 1845 and based in Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The company was headed by Frederick Frelinghuysen (1848–1924). The company w ...

Early life and education

Huck was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, and grew up in

Nutley, New Jersey Nutley is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 30,143. What is now Nutley was originally incorporated as Franklin Township by an act of the New Jersey Legisla ...

, where he graduated from

Nutley High School Nutley High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school in the Township of Nutley, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades as the lone secondary school of the Nutley Public Schoo ...

in 1940. He graduated from the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

in 1943 with a degree in chemistry.

Career

After graduating from Penn State, Huck began his career as a research chemist for

Hoffmann-La Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX ...

. In 1958, he joined the Merck Sharp & Dohme division of Merck & Co. as a director of marketing. He became vice president of marketing planning in 1966 and subsequently vice president for sales & marketing, executive vice president and then president of the division in 1973. In 1975, Huck was named a senior vice president of Merck & Co. He then went on to become executive vice president in 1977 and then president and chief operating officer in 1978. He was named chairman of the board in 1985, one year prior to his retirement in 1986. After retiring from Merck, Huck joined the board of Nova Pharmaceutical Corporation, where he served for several years as chairman before retiring in 1991. Huck had served on the boards of Amstar Corporation, AMF,

Amoco Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...

, and the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, where he was also chairman. Huck was trustee emeritus of the board of trustees of the Pennsylvania State University and a former president of that board. He also served as a member of the university's Grand Destiny Campaign steering committee.

Philanthropy

Lloyd and his wife Dottie donated more than $40 million to Penn State. The university's Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences is named for them. They were named the university's 2008 Renaissance Fund Honorees. Additionally, Huck endowed the John Lloyd Huck Institute for Management Science Research at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

and the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in England in 2000.

Personal life

Huck was married to the former Dorothy B. Foehr of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, also a 1943 Penn State graduate, and resided in

State College, Pennsylvania State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania Sta ...

. They had a son and two daughters.

References

2012 deaths Businesspeople in the pharmaceutical industry 1922 births Merck & Co. people Nutley High School alumni People from Nutley, New Jersey 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century philanthropists Pennsylvania State University alumni {{philanthropist-stub