Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Former Sears Chairman Brennan Passes Away


Edward Brennan, the man who led Sears, Roebuck & Company through the late 1980s and the early half of the '90s, passed away Friday, December 28th at the age of 73, according to the retailer's officials.
Brennan started as a sales associate at a Sears store in Wisconsin and worked his way up in a classic American success story to rise to become the chairman of what was then the world's largest merchant in 1986. He was a graduate of Marquette University in 1956, when he then became a Sears associate at one of the chain's Madison, Wisconsin, stores.
In January 1981, Brennan was chosen to be the chairman and CEO of the retail operations. In between 1984 and 1986, he was the president and chief operating officer of the company. He retired from Sears in 1995. After leaving, he became chairman at AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines in 2003 and stayed on until May 2004. He also served on the boards of McDonald's Corp., 3M Company, and Exelon Corp. Current McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner called him a "true leader and a man of great integrity".


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