Jack Deemer Lantz – 50th Reunion Essay

Jack Deemer Lantz

496 Prospect Terrace

Pasadena, CA 91103

jacklantz@earthlink.net

626-796-9090 (H); 626-716-1378 (C)

Spouse(s): Paulette C. Lantz (1975)

Education: Harvard Business School, MBA, 1979

National Service: U.S. Army Captain,1969–1977

Career: Avery Dennison Corporation 1979–1982 Plant Manager; Q-Tech Corporation VP Operations 1982–1989; Miyachi Unitek Corporation CEO 1989–2014

Avocations: Director of Music & Worship Arts, La Canada Presbyterian Church; Jack Lantz Big Band; LCPC Orchestra; Genji’s World in Japanese Woodblock Prints (Hotei-Brill Publishing); Episcopal Community Services for Seniors; American Flyer and LGB model trains

College: Timothy Dwight

In his latest book, On Grand Strategy, Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis postulates that all leaders are either “hedgehogs” or “foxes.” Gaddis traces his theory back to ancient Greek poet Archilochus of Paros, as refined by Oxford don Isaiah Berlin: “Hedgehogs relate everything to a single central vision” through which “all that they say and do has significance.” Foxes, in contrast, “pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, in some de facto way.”

It seems I fall into the “fox” category—pursuing unrelated activities, but in the end connecting them together. After studying music composition at Yale and anticipating a music career, I spent the first years after Yale in the US Army (from Yale ROTC), most of it in Asia, where I met and married my wife in Tokyo. The army trained me in manufacturing and logistics, taught me a love of Asia and Asian art, and introduced me to Paulette, who has been my wife/muse/partner in all things for 45 years.

After the military and an MBA, I pursued a 40-year career in high-tech manufacturing, most of it as CEO of a multinational company. I bought and sold and built a network of international manufacturing companies. Through global business travel, I collected Japan and Asia art objects, and developed a network of business, art and musical friends. Still, I maintained a second career in music, and a third career in Asian art.

Today, after selling and retiring from my company, I am back where I started: devoting much of my time to performing, conducting and writing music in orchestras, church choirs and my jazz band, applying my Yale music education. However, I am blessed to be able to pursue varied activities: advising company owners and boards, continuing our Asian art pursuits, with exhibitions and book development, and operating model trains, both inside and outside in our garden. Perhaps the interest in trains derives from New Haven’s A.C. Gilbert Co., as well as riding the New Haven Railroad to and from NYC.

Lessons learned:

1. People should be the focus of our lives. Respecting and caring for others is the purpose of life. Business is about people, not about money. It is people buying parts and services from people, people designing and building products, and selling them to people, who in turn serve more people.

2. Don’t ignore the presence of the Almighty in our lives. God leads us into varying encounters, often unexpected, which can become very fulfilling. Skills learned from independent pursuits can be blended to create a better whole.

3. A full day is one in which I pursue a variety of diverse activities—perhaps too “fox” and insufficiently “hedgehog,” but that’s the way it is.

Lastly, one concern: Based on recent media reports regarding suppression of political discourse and free speech at Yale, I worry that our alma mater has gone too far left, where even Bill Buckley would no longer be welcomed or even tolerated.