About Weatherhead - Albert J. Weatherhead III

In February 1980, Case Western Reserve University's Board of Trustees passed a resolution renaming the School of Management the Weatherhead School of Management in honor of Albert J. Weatherhead III and four generations his family’s leadership in business and industry. The resolution followed a $3 million gift from Mr. Weatherhead, a steadfast friend of our school. As an Honorary Trustee and Emeriti Trustee of Case Western Reserve and a member of the university’s Board of Trustees and Weatherhead Visiting Committee, he maintained a deep involvement in the CWRU community.

Mr. Weatherhead was the chairman and CEO of Weatherhead Industries, the parent company of Weatherchem, a private manufacturer of plastic closures for food, spice, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical products. His 60 years of experience in the plastics and metalworking industries led to various U.S. and Canadian patents for metal-working processes and plastic products.

In 1987, Mr. Weatherhead became president of the Weatherhead Foundation, a family establishment that focuses on higher education endowments. For more than twenty years, the Foundation has generously supported our institution as well as Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Texas-Houston .He and his wife, Celia Weatherhead, endowed the C.J. & A. J. Weatherhead III Endowment Fund, the Albert J. Weatherhead Professor of Management, and the Weatherhead Endowment Fund. After Mr. Weatherhead’s death at age 86 in September 2011, CWRU President Barbara R. Snyder announced that the couple had made a $50 million pledge to support the school of management and found the university’s new Weatherhead Institute of Family Medicine and Community Health.

In addition to his career in industry and extensive work for the university, Mr. Weatherhead found time to pen the inspirational book The Power of Adversity: Tough Times Can Make You Stronger, Wiser, and Better (Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2008), and also authored The New Age of Business (Ohio University Press, 1956) and John Parker Lindsay: A Study in Firepower (American Society of Firearms Collectors Press, 1971).