Inducted in 2015
Personal Care Industry Executive

Colman Mockler, Jr. was born on December 29, 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the son of Colman, Sr., an accountant with the Shell Oil Company, and Veronica McKenna Mockler, a homemaker. Colman grew up with two sisters, Mary Ann and Christine, and a brother, Robert, Prep Class of 1949. The family moved from St. Louis to Scarsdale, New York when Shell transferred the elder Colman to its corporate offices in New York City. Resettled in his new town, Colman attended Immaculate Heart of Mary Grammar School before arriving at Rose Hill in September of 1943.

At the Prep, Colman Mockler proved himself a well-rounded young man. A four-year footballer, he also played basketball and ran track, acted with the Dramatic Society, sang with the Prep Glee Club, wrote for the Rampart, helped edit the Ramkin, and even competed in citywide Latin translation competitions. As Colman would often express, he had very much enjoyed every aspect of his Hughes Hall years: the teachers, the great camaraderie and even — at least in hindsight — life under watchful eye of Fr. Arthur Shea, the Prep’s legendary prefect of students, and today, a fellow Hall of Honor inductee. Looking back on his years at Rose Hill, the boy from St. Louis wrote, “I remember, with nostalgia, my happy days at Fordham Prep — and also, my several times on the jug line after classes to work off minor infractions of the rules.”

Graduating from the Prep in 1947, Mockler attended Harvard as an undergraduate, a member of the Crimson Class of 1952. He would remain in Boston, working towards a 1954 degree from Harvard Business School. A member of the Hasty Pudding Club, he remained an active and supportive member of the Harvard community throughout his legendary business career, even serving stints as a member of the Harvard Corporation and as president of the institution’s board of overseers. As a loyal Ram, he also remained close to Fordham Prep through the years, and to many of his old Rose Hill classmates.

The newly-minted MBA was briefly employed by General Electric in the mid-'50s before returning to Harvard as a research assistant. In 1957, he joined Gillette — the company with which his name would in time become synonymous — as an assistant in the accounting department. It was the same year he wed Joanna Sperry, a Vassar alumna of deep faith and compassion who would become an internationally recognized advocate for the poor. Colman and Joanna raised four children: Colman III, Andrew, Joanna and Emily.

Moving up through the ranks of leadership, Mockler held several positions at Gillette — treasurer, vice president, executive vice president and president — eventually serving as the company’s CEO and chairman of the board from 1976-1991. With Mockler at the helm, Gillette became an enormous force in the market. While the venerable brand had enjoyed a reputation as a producer of quality shaving products for decades, Mockler’s vision restructured the company leading to soaring sales and unprecedented corporate stability.

All along, he was known as a businessman with values, working for the good of the company as a whole rather than personal gain or notoriety. As Gillette grew more and more successful under his watch, Colmon repeatedly fought to resist hostile takeovers. As quoted by the late Dr. Judson Calberg, former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Mockler felt that protecting his company from takeover not so much a strategic move as it was a moral imperative: “The well-being of thousands of employees is at stake. The people who will benefit will be the investors who are motivated by money. My management team and board of directors and I look beyond to see the worldwide Gillette family, many of whom will lose their jobs if the company is bought out.”

A man of deep faith and a sound moral compass, he was held up as the exemplar of a successful, principled business leader by Jim Collins in his best-selling management book Good to Great.

Colman Michael Mockler, Jr. passed away suddenly on January 25, 1991. He was 61 years old.  In his memory, Joanna endowed the Mockler Center for Faith and Ethics in the Workplace at Gordon-Conwell. The Mockler Financial Aid Fund at Harvard and the Coleman M. Mockler ’47 Scholarship Fund at Fordham Prep are also named in his honor.