Robert Ewing POWELL [2796]

   Cause of his death was Lung Cancer.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. He resided at 179 E Lake Shore DR, Unit 1001 on 18 April 2010 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States.

2. His obituary was published in the Chicago Tribune on 20 April 2010 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States. ⁸²⁹ Inland Steel exec Robert E. Powell ushered in progressive management approach
Former VP of sales mentored many colleagues
By Trevor Jensen, Tribune reporter
5:20 PM CDT, April 20, 2010
Robert E. Powell brought progressive management techniques and a straightforward approach to a long career at Inland Steel, where over 34 years he held a number of top sales and planning positions.
An approachable executive known to many colleagues simply as "Powell," he died at 73 of complications from lung cancer on Sunday, April 18, in hospice care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said his son, Benjamin. He lived on Chicago's Gold Coast and also had a home along a golf course at West Virginia's famed Greenbrier Resort.
At Inland, Mr. Powell developed multidisciplinary teams, bringing together colleagues from departments including finance, operations and technical to assist clients and woo new customers. The approach worked "much better than having a single guy in there trying to figure it out," former colleague Matt Lofton said. The approach helped bring in business from clients including Japanese automakers that had set up shop in the United States, a lucrative new source of income for steel-makers.
"Bob had a way of relating to people," Lofton said. "Good news fast, bad news faster; Bob believed in keeping the customers informed."
Fresh ways to go about business became especially important as the steel industry, long a male-dominated sector where "business was pretty much controlled by screaming and shouting," was compelled to change amid increasing overseas competition, said Ted Myers, a former chief financial officer at Inland.
Recruiting efforts led by Mr. Powell and others targeted a more diversified pool of talent from colleges and universities and didn't pigeonhole candidates by degree - "even some liberal arts majors, if you can believe that," Myers said. Newly hired workers spent time in different departments to get to know all aspects of Inland's business.
"We did some unusual things to grow the staff and be more sophisticated," Myers said.
A graduate of New Trier High School, Mr. Powell was the son of Howard S. Powell, an executive with the Illinois Central Railroad and brother of the singer and actor Dick Powell (whose many movies included "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Murder, My Sweet.")
He majored in speech communications at Denison University in Ohio, where he met his future wife, Caryl Slater. They were married in October 1959, not long after he had started at Inland as a sales trainee.
As he moved up at Inland, Mr. Powell spent time in Detroit, Columbus and Cleveland. He completed Harvard University's Advanced Management Program in 1983 and remained in touch with a number of his classmates, for whom he organized a 25th reunion in Chicago in 2008.
He was usually one of the first people in the office at Inland's Loop headquarters and did a lot of early-morning "management by walking around," stopping in to colleagues' offices to find out what was up, Lofton said. In the process, he became a mentor to many younger colleagues, Lofton among them.
"Everyone loved the guy. But they respected him even more," Myers said.
He held titles including vice president of corporate planning and vice president of sales before retiring in 1992 as vice president of marketing for Inland Steel Industries Inc., the parent of Inland Steel Co.
Mr. Powell is survived by his wife, Caryl; another son, Jeffrey; two daughters, Stephanie Knight and Katherine Brickman; two brothers, William and Charles; and nine grandchildren.
Services are set for 3:30 p.m. Monday, April 26, at Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., Chicago. A reception will follow at The Casino, 195 E. Delaware Place.
ttjensen@tribune.com <mailto:ttjensen@tribune.com>
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune <http://www.chicagotribune.com/>
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Robert married Caryl SLATER [2797] [MRIN: 4339].