Samuel Neaman, Manager Known to Promote Innovation -- Rest in Peace

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Subject: Samuel Neaman, Manager Known to Promote Innovation

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California

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Date Posted: November 16, 2002 2:11:50 EDT

Samuel Neaman, who oversaw a sprawling retailing empire in the 1960's, died Wednesday at his home in Oceanside, California. He was 89 and, until about a decade ago, had lived in New York City.

Born in 1913 in what is now Israel, Mr. Neaman lived for many years in London and served in the British army during World War II. He managed a small family-owned knitting company in Paris, his own blouse-making company in London and a steel mill in Mexico before connecting in 1962 with Meshulam Riklis, a colorful conglomerate-builder of the postwar period who controlled the Rapid-American Corporation.

While Mr. Riklis delighted in the financial gamesmanship of corporate takeovers, Mr. Neaman preferred the day-to-day management of people. At the high-water mark of his career, Mr. Neaman's realm included many of the stores where baby boomers first honed their shopping skills: McCrory's, S. Klein, Lerner's, Best & Company and J. J. Newberry.

A workaholic and ebullient manager, he was best known in his day for his renovation of the money-losing McCrory's chain. This was detailed in the 1976 book "For the Good of the Company," by Isadore Barmash and cited in the 1982 best seller, "In Search of Excellence," by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr.

Mr. Peters and Mr. Waterman credited Mr. Neaman with fostering an environment that encouraged innovation by rank-and-file employees. His turnaround at McCrory, they said, "is more than just a story of a lot of people experimenting; it's also a story of people who stick out a little bit, people who start to feel like winners."

Although he gave people room to try new things, he also demanded a lot of his staff. A review of Mr. Barmash's book observed that Mr. Neaman "favors subordinates lean and hungry enough to sacrifice family life and other interests `for the good of the company.' "

Despite his personal successes, Mr. Neaman's retailing career spanned a difficult era for the dowager downtown stores he managed, as fresher merchants in suburban shopping malls grabbed away customers during the youth-oriented 1960's. He oversaw the closing of Best & Company, to great criticism from its faithful shoppers, and presided over several angry shareholder meetings as he struggled to improve profits at S. Klein and other stores in the Rapid-American family.

In 1974, as McCrory's chairman and one of the highest-paid retailing executives in the country, he abruptly resigned to seek the top post at a rival chain, Interstate Stores. Other Interstate investors balked at some of his demands, however, and the job did not materialize. Thereafter, Mr. Neaman slipped into retirement, devoting most of his time and fortune to his charitable interests.

Chief among his beneficiaries was the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he endowed the Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology in 1978. He served as deputy chairman of the institute's international board, and was both president and vice chairman of the board of the American Technion Society, where he was honorary chairman at the time of his death. In 1982, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Technion Institute, and in 1997 he received the institute's Technion Medal.

Cecilia Neaman, his wife of 62 years, died in 1999. According to officials of the American Technion Society, his only survivor is his younger brother, Yfrah Neaman, of London.

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