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JOHN DICKSON HARPER
1910-1985
BY ALLEN S. RUSSELL
OHN DICKSON HARPER, former chairman of the Aluminum
Company of America (Alcoa), noted industrialist, and civic
leader, ctied on July 26, 1985, in Pittsburgh's St. CIair Me-
morial Hospital of a heart ailment. He was seventy-five years
old.
Mr. Harper was born in Louisville, Tennessee, on April 6,
1910. When he was fifteen years old and still in high school,
he obtained a summer job running an electric truck for
twelve clolIars a week at Alcoa's nearby operations, where he
continuer! to work during school vacations until he received
his high school diploma. After graduation, he became a co-
operative student at the University of Tennessee and alter-
natec3 his schedule between classes and his job in the Alcoa
plant. He also found time to be a member of the ROTC, the
Pershing Rifles, and Tau Beta Pi.
In 1933, following his graduation from the university with
a degree in electrical engineering, Mr. Harper went to work
operating a complex powerhouse switchboard! in one of Al-
coa's hyclroelectric plants. Two years later, he was assisting in
the actual design and construction of a new generating sta-
tion.
In 1943 John became assistant power manager of Alcoa's
extensive Tennessee and North Carolina generating facili-
ties. During the next eight years, he organized central load
185
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186
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
dispatching, standardized operating procedures, coordi-
nated plant operations with the Tennessee Valley Authority,
directed the development of telemetering equipment, and
patented several sophisticated telemetry devices. In addition,
he developed maintenance procedures for equipment and
oils and administered power contracts for the facilities.
After Alcoa decided in 1951 to build a hundred-million-
dolIar aluminum smelter at Rockdale, Texas, Mr. Harper was
given the responsibility of building and operating it. He soon
found, however, that the actual building of the smelter was
only one of his many construction problems. In addition to
erecting a huge reduction plant in an industrially undevel-
oped area of Texas, Alcoa had decided to generate its power
by strip-mining and burning lignite, a subbituminous coal
that abounded in the area. This decision meant that while his
engineers handled site preparations (getting the land ready
for foundations and scooping out an 850-acre lake to store
water for the smelter), Mr. Harper had to prepare area
residents for a major upheaval in their landscape and their
lives.
This part of the story was reported in the Saturday Evening
Post 1955 article, "How to Get Along with Texans," by George
Sessions Perry. According to Perry, Mr. Harper, wearing
khakis and driving an inexpensive car, set out to win friends
for Alcoa. He became acquainted with the area's ranchers,
farmers, businessmen, and politicians; helped the small town
of Rockdale expand to accommodate thousands of construc-
tion workers and, later, production employees; purchased
property and minerals; negotiated water rights-of-way with
landowners along a tweIve-mile pipeline to the San Gabriel
and Little rivers; and generally dispelled fears that Pitts-
burgh Yankees were out to ruin Texas for a profit. later,
reported Perry, when plant operations required the con-
struction of a lake, he did not surround it with a nine-foot
fence to keep the public out, but instead stocked it with bass
and invited the community to enjoy it as their own.
Mr. Harper pledged to Rockdale's town council that Alcoa
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JOHN DICKSON HARPER
187
would pay taxes in advance so that the town could expand
such essential municipal facilities as water lines and streets.
New schools also had to be built for the children who would
come with the anticipated employment floocl. When he
learned that the weekly Rockdale Reporter had been campaign-
ing for years for a municipal swimming pool, Mr. Harper
arranged for Alcoa to donate the lanct and pay half the cost
of a first-cIass pool installation.
Scarcely a year after ground was broken, the first potline
at the Rockdale Works was producing aluminum. By early
1954 the entire smelter was in operation at a capacity of
90,000 tons a year a figure that later expansion increaser!
to more than 300,000 tons a year, making Rockciale Alcoa's
largest smelter.
On April 24, ~ 954, more than seven hundred special
guests, including Governor Shivers and Alcoa executives, vis-
itec! the smelter for lunch and a tour that preceded an open
house. The next day John Harper learnect what it meant to
invite all of Texas to a public inspection. He and his staff had
expected ten thousand visitors at most. By nightfall, how-
ever, more than twenty thousand central Texans tract poured
through the plant, leaving an exhausted Alcoa staff.
In 1955 Alcoa's management clecidecI that John Harper
tract fulfilled his Rockdale mission and transferred him to
Pittsburgh. He was ma(le Smelting Division general manager
in 1956 anti was appointee! vice-presiclent in charge of the
Alcoa Smelting and Fabricating divisions in 1960. In 1962 he
became, in succession, vice-presiclent in charge of produc-
tion, executive vice-presiclent, and a ctirector. He became
president of Alcoa in 1963 and chairman of the board in
1970. He held the position of chief executive officer from
1965 until March I, 1975. On June 19, 1975, he retired as
chairman, but continued as a director. He was chairman of
the executive committee from 1965 until 1978.
Ranked high among his accomplishments was the devel-
opment of the Alcoa smelting process, a revolutionary,
power-saving method of producing aluminum. Mr. Harper
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
supported this project from its long, expensive development
stage through its full-scale piloting at Palestine, Texas. Ap-
plication of the smelting process was eventually postponed
by excess capacity in the aluminum industry.
During his busy years with Alcoa, John Harper rose at 6:30
or earlier every morning, including Sundays and holidays;
his tremendous drive kept him going until late at night. It
was commonplace for him to work several hours in his Pitts-
burgh office, fly to New York in a company plane for a busi-
ness luncheon or another engagement, and return to Pitts-
burgh by late afternoon. Typically, by dawn the next day, he
could be off to Washington, an Alcoa installation on either
coast, or an overseas business conference.
John Harper's leadership style in Alcoa was modeled on a
practical plane. He delegated authority; expected, and got,
results. He might ask advice from a dozen associates on ma-
jor problems, but when it was time to act, he made the deci-
sion.
Following his retirement from Alcoa, Mr. Harper accepted
the position of director and chairman of the Communica-
tions Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) and director of ALA
Investors, Inc., Crutcher Resources Corporation, and
Banque Paribas. The year before he passed away, he became
chairman of AEA Investors, Inc.
Of all his convictions, none was more positive than his be-
lief that no business could survive without adequate profits
regardless of how prosperous it or its country might appear
to be. He expressed his feelings on this point to the Dallas
Management Association:
Whatever the reasons may be, it is evident that increasing numbers
of Americans seem to want the benefits of the free enterprise eco-
nomic system without first putting forth the effort to earn the profits
that make possible an even higher standard of living.
If we are to have a public policy of prosperity without profits, this
means that we must embrace a new economic and political philoso-
phy one in which state control and dictatorial power replace our free
choice in the marketplace and I firmly believe that this is not what
Americans, including those in labor and management, really want.
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JOHN DICKSON HARPER
189
The dangerous illusion of profitless prosperity feeds on ignorance,
indifference, and procrastination....
He callect business to a broader fulfillment of its social re-
sponsibility and to creeper involvement with the society at
large. To the Congress of American Inclustry sponsored by
the National Association of Manufacturers, he said:
A viable society in which business can prosper and grow, the kind of
society all of us want, demands the intelligent exercise of public re-
sponsibility by the business community itself....
It makes sense to participate with corporate money, talent, and
energy in a community project to improve conditions in the slums.
In the long run, such participation will prove to be beneficial to your
own business. Because, if you reduce delinquency, crime, and illiteracy,
you reduce your own corporate tax load, and you convert welfare cases
into productive workers.
In delivering the three 1976 Fairiess Lectures, "A View of
the Corporate Role in Society," at Carnegie Mellon Univer-
sity, he saint: "l have offered as my central thesis the convic-
tion that it is the responsibility of the corporation to deserve
and keep society's trust, and that it does so by being a positive
agent of change."
He also said in these lectures, "l have trier! to practice the
principles of management responsibility which ~ preach. ~
have (devoted myself to bringing others together to work to-
gether for the common good."
John Harper was a founder ant! the first chairman of the
Business Rouncitable, chairman of the National Alliance of
Businessmen, vice-chairman of the Committee for Economic
Development, honorary member of the Business Council,
and a senior member of the Conference Board. He was a
founder and chairman of the International Primary Alumi-
num Institute and president of the Aluminum Association.
In addition, he was a director of the Mellon National Cor-
poration, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the
Goodyear Tire ant] Rubber Company, and the Procter &
Gamble Company. He was vice-chairman of the Committee
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
for Constructive Consumerism, vice-chairman and a life
trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of both
the national executive committee of the Boy Scouts of Amer-
ica and the Business Committee for Arts, Inc.
Among numerous honors bestowed on Mr. Harper cluring
his career was the Knight's Cross, Orcler of St. Olav, for dis-
tinguished contributions to Norwegian industry. He also
held the Silver Beaver Award of the Boy Scouts of America,
the American Business Press Silver Quill Award, and the
Pennsylvania Society's GoIct Medal for Distinguished Service.
He received the 1977 Gantt Memorial Medal of the Ameri-
can Society of Mechanical Engineers and the first Bryce Har-
low Foundation Award in ~ 982.
John Harper was a fellow of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers, a fellow of the American Society of Me-
chanical Engineers, and a life member of both the Institute
.
.
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers anct the American So-
ciety for Metals. He hell] a number of honorary degrees:
doctor of engineering degrees from Lehigh University,
Maryville College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; cloc-
tor of law degrees from both Carnegie Mellon University anct
the University of Evansville; a doctor of science degree from
CIarkson College of Technology; and a doctor of commercial
science from Widener College. He was electecl to the Na-
tional Academy of Engineering in 1971.
Mr. Harper is survived by his wife Mary Lee anc! her three
sons of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and Jonathan's Lancling,
Florida, and by his sons, John D. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
ant] Thomas W. of Knoxville, Tennessee. He is also survived
by eight grandchildren. His first wife, Samma Lucille Mc-
Crary, died in 1979. His eldest son, Rogers McCrary Harper,
cried in 1980.
Mr. Harper's service to the U.S. government and to the
aluminum industry was long anct (listinguishetl. During his
tenure as chief executive officer of the worIcl's largest alumi-
num producer, he became the spokesman for the aluminum
industry. He was an ardent advocate of the social responsi-
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JOHN DICKSON HARPER
191
bility of industry and an ardent promoter of private enter-
prise. He strengthened Alcoa's position as an industrial
leader and led the company's penetration into promising and
innovative market areas. A staunch believer in business and
government cooperation, he was the friend and confidant of
presidents of the United States.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
dickson harper
