About The Author

About Paul R. Judy

Paul Ray Judy was born in Portland, IN, grew up in nearby Muncie, and attended the Burris Laboratory School, where he excelled as a student, class leader, and long distance runner, winning various academic and track awards. From age 12, he displayed a strong work ethic, saving money earned in various youthful occupations including magazine sales, newspaper delivery, and grocery work. He was President of his Class and one of the top high school long distance runners in Indiana. During high school summers, at age 16, Mr. Judy served in every position in a local supermarket, working 72 hours per week at 35c/hour. He managed the market for two weeks while the owners were on vacation. Many years later, in 2008, Mr. Judy was recognized as an inaugural entry into the Burris Hall of Fame.

Mr. Judy left Muncie in the fall of 1949 to attend Harvard College on an NROTC scholarship. He graduated cum laude in 1953. He was captain of the Harvard freshman cross country team and lettered as a member of the varsity track and cross country teams in his sophomore year. He majored in the Physical Sciences. During his senior year, he was Commander of Harvard's NROTC Unit and winner of the Phineas Henry McCrae Award as the Unit's outstanding midshipman.

Upon graduation, Mr. Judy received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, where he served primarily as a machine gun and mortar platoon leader, not however experiencing any wartime duty. Mr. Judy was married in November, 1954, while in the service and was honorably discharged in September, 1955. After three years of reserve service, Mr. Judy retired from the Corps with the rank of Captain. Mr. Judy continues proudly to attend an annual lunch in Chicago each November 10 celebrating the birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

In the fall of 1955, Mr. Judy entered the Harvard Business School from which he received an M. B. A. with high distinction and as a Baker Scholar in 1957. He remained at the School for an additional year, serving as Research Assistant and case writer to Professor Charles M. Williams in the Finance Department.

In the fall of 1958, Mr. Judy joined the Chicago-based investment banking firm A. G. Becker & Co., Inc., as a Corporate Finance associate. After four years in the Corporate Finance Department of the Chicago office and three years building a sister department in the New York Office, Mr. Judy returned to Chicago in 1965 as Chairman of the firm's Executive Committee. He was elected President and Chief Executive Officer in 1968 at the age of 37.

During the late 1960s and into the late 1970s, A. G. Becker experienced substantial growth, diversification, and broadened recognition as a significant investment banking and financial services firm. Mr. Judy was instrumental in arranging the 1974 affiliation of Becker with two leading European financial firms, S. G. Warburg & Co. (London) and Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas S.A. (Paribas) (Paris), forming The Becker and Warburg-Paribas Group, Inc. Mr. Judy stepped down as Chief Executive of that organization in 1978 and retired and withdrew his investment from the firm in 1981, at age 50.

While active in the securities industry, Mr. Judy was a Governor of the New York Stock Exchange and served as the securities industry's representative on the Board of the Financial Accounting Foundation. At the request of llinois Governor Thompson in the early 1980s, Mr. Judy organized and became chairman of the Illinois Independent Higher Education Loan Authority (IIHELA) which raised funds in the municipal bond market with which to lend to Illinois private colleges and universities to help finance their student loan programs. To avoid a conflict of interest with his IIHELA duties, Mr. Judy resigned as Trustee of Northwestern University on which board he had served for a number of years.

From 1981 into the early 1990s, Mr. Judy served as an independent professional director of a number of public and private corporations, including Borg-Warner Corporation, International Minerals & Chemicals Corporation, Mallinkrodt, MidCon Corporation, The Chicago Pacific Corporation, The DeKalb Corporation, Robert Bosch North America, Miles Homes, Times Fibre, and The Raymond Corporation.

Over the years, Mr. Judy was a board member of a number not-for-profit organizations including the Carnegie Hall Society, The Field Foundation of Illinois, and various Chicago civic, social service, and cultural organizations, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, of which he was President from 1978-1981, and since then, a Life Trustee.

During his business years, Mr. Judy was a member of various social clubs including the Chicago Club (Chicago) and the Links Club (New York).

Mr. Judy withdrew from all for-profit and non-profit boards in the early 1990s in order to plan, found, build, and be the principal funder of the Symphony Orchestra Institute. The mission of this operating foundation was to foster greater effectiveness in how North American symphony orchestra organizations functioned, in order that they might be sustained and preserved for future generations. The Institute proposed significant changes to traditional organizational structures of the major North American symphony organizations, urging substantially increased and substantive participation by orchestra players in the decision making processes of these institutions. The Institute also sponsored organization development and transformation programs in various symphony organizations. During its nine year life, from 1994-2003, the Institute published sixteen issues of Harmony, a journal of insight and opinion about symphony organizational patterns, practices and issues, reflecting a variety of directions for positive organizational change.

Mr. Judy authored the following works in Harmony:

The Uniqueness and Commonality of American Symphony Orchestra Organizations (No. 2: April, 1996)

Pure Gold: The Fleischmann–Lipman–Morris Debate of 1987-89 (No.2: April, 1996)

Pierre Boulez: Reflections on Symphony Orchestra Organizations (No.3: October, 1996)

Symphony Orchesta Organizations: Employees, Constituencies, and Communities (No. 3: October, 1996)

An Instrument of Knowledge (with Meg Posey) (No.4: April, 1997)

Musician Involvement in Symphony Orchestra Organizations (with Marilyn Scholl) (No. 5: October, 1997)

Organization Change (No 5: October, 1997)

The Leadership Complexity of Symphony Orchestra Organiizations (No. 6: April, 1998)

Many Thanks to Many People (No. 7: October, 1998)

Organizational Involvement (No. 7: October, 1998)

Just a Dream? (No. 8: April, 1999)

Organizational Effectiveness: The Role of the Board of Directors (No. 9: October, 1999)

Reflections (No. 11: October, 2000)

Symphony Orchestra Organizations in the 21st Century and Full Report: Orchestras in the 21st Century (with Marilyn Scholl) (No.11: October, 2000)

Organization Change (No. 13: October, 2001)

Publishers Notes
No. 2, April,1996
No. 3, October, 1996
No. 4, April, 1997
No. 5, October, 1997
No. 6, April, 1998
No. 7, October, 1998
No. 8, April, 1999
No 9, October, 1999
No 10, April, 2000
No.11, October, 2000
No.12, April 2001
No.13, October, 2001

        Book review: The Boundaryless Organization by Ron Ashkenas, Dave Ulrich, Todd Jick, and Steve Kerr. Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers, 1995.

In connection with his efforts to improve the strength and sustainability of North American symphony orchestra organizations, Mr. Judy was presented the 2002 Gold Baton Award of the League of American Orchestras for his service to music and the arts and the cause of orchestras and symphonic music throughout the nation.

Believing that it was having insufficient effect given the resources being expended, the Symphony Orchestra Institute terminated its efforts in early 2005 and conveyed its residual resources and good will to the Eastman School of Music to fund the Orchestra Musician Forum, a broad new avenue for achieving the former Institute’s basic mission.

In 2013, Mr. Judy established an additional endowment fund at Eastman, the Paul R. Judy Center for Innovation and Research, to foster applied research into alternative organizational structures and behavioral patterns for musical arts organizations.

Recently, Mr. Judy collaborated with Emily S. Wozniak in authoring Alternative Ensembles: A Study of Emerging Musical Arts Organizations (2013: an unpublished report available at https://www.esm.rochester.edu/iml/prjc/poly/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Alternative-Ensembles-Report.pdf).

In 2012, Mr. Judy became Chairman and Chief Executive of The Chicago Philharmonic Society (formerly the Orchestral Society of Illinois). The Society draws on a community of over 300 professional classical musicians who play orchestral and chamber music under the Chicago Philharmonic auspices. Mr. Judy has led the organizational development of the Society toward being a musician-governed, -driven, and -highly involved musical arts organization, shaping it as an alternative to the structure and behavioral practices of the traditional symphony orchestra organization. Mr. Judy became Chairman Emeritus in 2016, but continues to be active in the leadership of the Society.

Other than the Symphony Orchestra Institute, The Chicago Philharmonic Society, and the Eastman School of Music, Mr. Judy’s other favorite philanthropies include Harvard College, where in the 1970s, he established the Bernard J. Dorsey Flexible Financial Aid Fund - in honor of his father-in-law - to provide financial aid to Harvard students. Also in the 1970s, Mr. Judy established the Paul Ricker Judy Fund at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association - in honor of his father, an amateur violinist - to fund the appearances of violin concerto soloists. In 2007, Mr. Judy established the Charles M. Williams Awards for Teaching Excellence at the Harvard Business School, to honor excellent case-method teachers and curriculum development. In 2008, Mr. Judy established the Mary Ann Dorsey Scholarship Fund at the University of Mary Washington, in honor of this wife, the former Mary Ann Dorsey, and memorializing the place where Mr. and Mrs. Judy met in 1953.

In more recent years, Mr. Judy established The Judy Family Foundation, which has a broad charitable mandate, but particularly to provide funds to social service agencies concentrating on serving single mothers with children, facing homelessness, and seeking education and training in order to become employable and live independently. This foundation is governed, and grants are made, by the Judy family as a team, with professional staff support. The foundation will be the ultimate beneficiary of Mr. Judy's estate.

From age 14, Mr. Judy has been an avid golfer, having to his life-time credit two holes-in-one, a double eagle, and some sub-par rounds. He has been a long time member of the Sankaty Head Golf Club, (Siasconset, Nantucket Island, MA), where the Judys have been summer residents since 1970, as well as the Old Elm Club (Highland Park, IL), and the Hole-in-the-Wall Club (Naples, FL). The Judys have spent summer months in Siasconset and winter months in Naples for many years.

Some years ago Mr. Judy researched, authored and published a monograph entitled The Origins and Early Development of the Sankaty Head Golf Club. Mr. Judy has had a long-standing and deep interest in the history of Siasconset, a village on the eastern shore of Nantucket Island. In 2010, Mr. Judy founded “'Sconset History Night,” a very popular presentation in 'Sconset annually in August featuring different aspects of the summer community's unique history.

Mr. and Mrs. Judy were married in 1954 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Judys have four children, Carol Ann Cronin, Annapolis, Maryland; Hannah Judy Gretz, Lake Forest, Illinois; John Hanlin Judy, Elmhurst, Illinois, and Beth Ellen Judy, Missoula, Montana, in addition to five grandchildren and two step grandchildren.

Beginning in 1985, intermittently in the 1990s, and intensively during 2016-17, Mr. Judy has been researching and writing the Chronicle of A. G. Becker & Co., Inc. titled The Birth, Life, and Death of an Investment Banking Firm. This work is published on the website, www.agbecker.us, which site is singularly dedicated to presenting the Chronicle and receiving readers' notes, comments, or reflections, to be published for all to read.

Quotations of material on the agbecker.us site are encouraged, providing proper credit is given.