John Morrison

1925 - 2019

John Morrison

John died in Toledo, Ohio, from natural causes, on March 24, 2019.

John was born on July 31, 1925 in Dayton, Ohio, the first child of Robert A. J. and Dorothy H. P. Morrison. He was the namesake of his uncle, who had been killed in France in World War I.

Having skipped second grade, John graduated from Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh at age 16. He enrolled in Yale College in 1942, but World War II interrupted his studies. John joined the Navy and trained to be a naval pilot. But the war ended before he was ready for active duty missions, and he returned to Yale, graduating in 1947 with a B.S. in engineering. He then earned an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1948.

Though he moved frequently during his childhood and young adult years, he invariably returned to the family cottage in Neah-ta-wanta, an idyllic summer resort on the Old Mission Peninsula in Michigan. John spent part of every summer of his life (save one, when in the Navy) in "Neah," and it was his favorite spot in the world. He sailed, swam and played tennis, and later taught his children to do the same.

Fresh out of graduate school, John took a position with Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing and moved to St. Paul, MN. There he was part of a 3M team that created and patented double-sided tape.

Meanwhile, he returned to Neah annually. In about 1951, his parents invited two sisters, Nancy and Carol Perkins of Reading, PA, to join the Morrison boys in Neah. After just three dates over a year-long courtship, John proposed to Nancy. She held out for a few months, but John persevered, she accepted, and they were wed in October, 1953.

John and Nancy had a long and happy marriage. In Nancy's words, just a few months before her death in 2015, "Our first 60 years of marriage were a blessing; this last one [in a small apartment in Assisted Living] was too much togetherness!" Among their many blessings were four children (Ken, Pete, Margie and Bob), their children's spouses (Susan, Kim, Stan and Susan, respectively), eight grandchildren in whom they delighted (chronologically, Ellie, Jack, Ben, Tommy, Abby, Nate, Alex and Peirce) and their grandchildren's spouses and fiancé (in order, Andy, Alli, Mary Kate and Jessica (fiancé)).

Nancy brought out the sportsman in John and their offspring. Though John had never earned a varsity letter, he coached little league baseball for many years was an avid and active tennis and paddle tennis player, golfer and skier as an adult. One Neah friend once remarked, "Heaven on earth is playing tennis with John and Nancy Morrison in Neah-ta-wanta!" Heaven on earth is also how John and Nancy felt about watching their children and grandchildren compete in many, many sporting events over the years, ranging from baseball, football and hockey to soccer, golf and rowing.

John and Nancy settled initially in St. Paul, but transfers and new jobs took them to Long Beach, CA, Webster Groves, MO, and, in 1965, to Toledo which became home for their remaining years.

John's job was with Owens-Illinois, where his daunting assignment was to develop a composite beer can; O-I was looking for a way to compete with aluminum cans, which were rapidly taking business away from O-I's bottle-making operations. He showed O-I that composite cans were technically feasible but not economical for carbonated beverages.

Instead of being the end, the result was that John found a new start with The End: aluminum ends for composite cans. At O-I, John designed and patented full-panel-removal ends for composite cans. His innovations were the SAFERIM® and DOUBLESAFE™ designs, which eliminated the risk of a consumer cutting his or her hand when reaching into a can of peanuts or tennis balls or another of the many products that were packaged with these ends. Another innovation was to open up foreign markets for his can ends, particularly in Japan, where he developed a long-lasting partnership with Marubeni Corp.

When O-I decided to sell John's division in 1981, he faced another inflection point. Despite having been a "company man" for the first 30 years of his career, he now had the chance to become an entrepreneur. Unwilling to take the deal that O-I offered him to buy certain can assets, he struck a deal with the eventual buyer to become its exclusive sales agent and technical advisor. John established Automated Container Corp. for that purpose, and ran that company successfully for many years with the aid of Nancy, as Treasurer, and Linda Ñáñez, his long-time assistant. In the early 1990s, his son Bob joined the company, and took it over when John retired in the latter part of that decade.

John is survived by his brother, Elliot, and all of his children and grandchildren and their significant others.

Memorial services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 13, 2019, at St. Michael's in the Hills, 4718 Brittany Road, Toledo, Ohio 43615 and at 11:00 a.m., July 28, 2019 at the West Bay Pavilion in Neah-ta-wanta, on the Old Mission Peninsula north of Traverse City, MI.

Contributions in John's memory may be made to St. Michael's in the Hills (https://lovelearnserve.org/), The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (www.gtrlc.org) or The Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org/join_the_cause_donate.asp).

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