Elmer W. Johnson |
| Posted 2009-04-01 by Sharon |
| The Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, AZ February 27, 2008, p. A10 Elmer W. Johnson, a managing partner of the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis from 1971 to 1992, a former president and chief executive officer of the Aspen Institute and a former executive vice president, director, and general counsel of General Motors Corporation, died on Feb. 19, 2008, at Wickenburg Community Hospital in Wickenburg. Mr. Johnson, a resident of Chicago, Illinois, was 75 years old. From 1983 to 1988, Mr. Johnson served in a variety of posts at GM, including as executive vice president, general counsel and a director of the corporation. While at GM, Mr. Johnson was deeply involved in the acquisition of EDS in 1984 and in negotiating the terms of Ross Perot’s departure from GM in 1986. In 1988, he returned to Kirkland & Ellis. From 1992 to 1999, while continuing as a partner in his firm, Mr. Johnson devoted most of his time to various civic endeavors and policy study projects. In 1993, under the sponsorship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he was a Fellow, he wrote “Avoiding the Collision of Cities and Cars,” which urged a new approach to policy that would reduce America’s almost exclusive reliance on the motor vehicle and encourage various kinds of intermodalism in urban settings. From 1996 to 1999, he led a project sponsored by the Commercial Club of Chicago, the City’s most prestigious association of business and civic leaders, to develop a new comprehensive plan for metropolitan Chicago. The last such ambitious undertaking had been carried out under the leadership of the famous architect Daniel Burnham, 90 years earlier under the sponsorship of the same club. In 1999, based on the three-year project, Mr. Johnson wrote “Chicago Metropolis 2020: The Chicago Plan for the 21st Century.” The hardbound edition of the book was published by the University of Chicago in 2001. As in the case of the Burnham’s Plan of Chicago, the Johnson plan sets forth a bold vision for improving the quality and equity of life for all the region’s residents. But whereas the Burnham plan called mostly for public works programs of various kinds, the Johnson plan aimed mainly at enhancing legal and institutional frameworks and infrastructures: schools; governance arrangements; transportation, land use and housing policy; and tax systems. Shortly after completing the metropolis project, Mr. Johnson accepted an invitation to become president and chief executive officer of the Aspen Institute, a forum in which top leaders in the public and private sectors meet with policy experts to discuss the major issues of the day and seek to strengthen their leadership skills. Mr. Johnson had been a trustee of the Institute since 1988 and had moderated a number of its seminars over the years. He left the presidency of the Institute in September 2002. During those 39 months, he greatly strengthened its programs and its outreach. Shortly after leaving the Institute, he and a long-time protigy and colleague, Robert S. Osborne, whom Mr. Johnson had recruited for Kirkland & Ellis from Harvard Law School in 1979 and who currently serves as group vice president and general counsel for GM, accepted an invitation to join Jenner & Block, another well-known national law firm based in Chicago. Along with them from Kirkland & Ellis came Mr. Osborne’s prot/g/, Joseph P. Gromacki, who currently chairs the corporate practice at Jenner & Block and serves on the firm’s governing committee. Together, their challenge was to build a corporate and tax practice that measured up to the excellence of the firm’s litigation practice. They succeeded brilliantly. Some months later, Janet Froetscher, the new president and chief executive officer of United Way in Chicago who had been Mr. Johnson’s right-hand person at the Aspen Institute, retained him as her special counsel to help achieve the goal of consolidating the many fragmented United Way organizations across the region into one entity: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. That goal was achieved in 2003. She became the CEO of the new entity, and Mr. Johnson was elected as a Vice Chair and director. Mr. Johnson often commented to his friends as to his good fortune in being asked by his “two super-star prot/g/s of all time to become their sidekick and prot/g/. How many men or women,” he would say, “get such an opportunity in the twilight of their careers?” Elmer W. Johnson was born in Denver on May 2, 1932. He graduated from Yale University in 1954 and earned his J.D. degree at University of Chicago Law School in 1957. Mr. Johnson was married to Constance Dorothy Mahon from 1955 until his death. He and his wife lived all their married life in Chicago, except for five years in the Detroit area when he was an executive with General Motors. He is survived by his wife; two daughters, Julianne Sargent of Seattle, Wash., and Valerie Peterson of Palatine, Ill.; one son, Garrett Johnson of Sawyer, Mich.; and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago on Friday, March 7. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago at 126 Chestnut St. Chicago, IL 60611 or to the Wickenburg Community Hospital 520 Rose Lane Wickenburg, AZ 85390. For further information, contact Barbara Cleveland of Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago at 312-787-4570. Local arrangements under the direction of Wickenburg Funeral Home & Crematory. |
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