David J. Mahoney*

Born in New York's East Bronx in 1923, Mahoney was the son of an Irish immigrant who worked as a crane operator. During the Great Depression, Mahoney sold newspapers to help with the family finances.

A scholarship of $10 a month enabled Mahoney to attend Cathedral High School, a private school in Manhattan. Later, he was awarded a scholarship to LaSalle Military Academy. A good baseball and basketball player, he won an athletic scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School of Business.

He interrupted his studies to serve in the U.S. Army infantry during World War II, rising from private to captain in three years. When he returned, he continued his studies at Wharton at night and worked weekdays at a New York ad agency. Upon completing his degree less than three years later, he became a vice president at the agency and was supervising some of its key accounts.

Two years later, Mahoney left his comfortable $25,000-a-year ad agency job to form his own firm, established with a $10,000 bank loan. The young agency attracted some excellent clients, among them, Good Humor Corp. Five years later, Mahoney sold his agency for $500,000 and assumed the presidency of Good Humor. There, he increased sales and profits dramatically. In another five years, he joined Colgate-Palmolive as executive vice president of the firm's domestic operations. Four years later, in 1966, he was recruited by Norton Simon to head Canada Dry, which was controlled by Hunt Foods & Industries.

Within two years, Norton Simon, Inc. was created by a merger of Hunt Foods, McCall Corporation, and Canada Dry. Mahoney was named president and chief operating officer. A year later, he emerged as CEO, becoming president and chairman in 1969.

By 1977, the year the Horatio Alger Association honored Mahoney, Norton Simon was a major international company that marketed consumer products. In 1983, Mahoney left the firm to head his own investment firm, David Mahoney Ventures, as well as the Churchill Trust Company.

Mahoney had a lifelong commitment to health and medical research. In 1983, he endowed the David Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1990, he established the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute. He also served as chairman and CEO of the Charles A. Dana Foundation and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.