Personal
In 1987, Rodgers was described by The New York Times as "a leading candidate to head the Department of Commerce" to succeed Malcolm Baldrige, Jr., a post that ultimately went to William Verity Jr.
Rodgers was named to serve as chairman and acting CEO of Berlitz International, following the mysterious death of former part-owner Robert Maxwell in 1991. He also served as a director of several major corporations and was active in a number of local civic, charitable and religious organizations.
He was fundraising co-chair for Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential campaign bid.
Rodgers died at age 75 on February 2, 2009 of cancer. He was survived by his wife, Helen Martin "Honey" Rodgers, to whom he had been married for 52 years, as well as a daughter, a son and eight grandchildren.
Read more about this topic: Joe M. Rodgers
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power’s sake ... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one’s own rules.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)