Alan Barry

1943 - 2022

News Story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer


Alan Barry, a Toledo native and an accountant, as his father was, who grew up to become president of a Fortune 200 company based in suburban Detroit and a benefactor of the University of Toledo, died Tuesday at the University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor. He was 79.

He had lymphoma, his brother Gordon Barry said.

Mr. Barry and his wife, Karen, had homes northwest of Detroit, in Oakland County's Commerce Township, and in Scottsdale, Ariz.

He retired at the end of 2007 as president and chief operating officer of Masco Corp., a leading maker of faucets and plumbing and building products.

He and his wife had a record of philanthropy to their alma mater, UT, when in 2014 the university's college of business and innovation named a new accounting lab for Mr. Barry. The couple endowed a scholarship fund for full-time UT business accounting students and, in 2017 gave $1 million to support "the Alan H. and Karen A. Barry Endowed Professorship" in accounting.

"I've always been a supporter of the university, and once I was in a position to do so financially, I felt pretty good about giving back to the university that gave me the opportunity to succeed," Mr. Barry said then in a statement at the time.

Mr. Barry, who had been a UT Foundation trustee, received the 2018 Business Pacemaker award from the university's business college.

While at UT, he'd been a leader in student government and active in his fraternity, his brother Gordon said. At least once a year, the pair attended a UT football game together.

Toledo, his brother said, "meant everything to him. He was a generous guy."

Mr. Barry was born Jan. 11, 1943, to Lillian and Julius Barry, the first of what would be three children. He grew up on Warren Street near the Old West End and then on Drummond Road in West Toledo. He had been a member of Congregation B'nai Israel. He was a 1961 graduate of DeVilbiss High School, where he was vice president of his class, his brother said.

He was fascinated with numbers from the time he learned to count, he told the Detroit Jewish News in 2003. His father was a self-employed accountant, and Mr. Barry at age 9 first accompanied him to the office. He was 13 years old when his father gave him an optometrist as his first bookkeeping client.

"My dad helped, but I was mostly self-taught," Mr. Barry said in 2003. "I am success driven. I have worked hard all of my life."

After receiving his bachelor's degree in accounting from UT, he became an audit supervisor at the accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst in Toledo. He left when a client of the firm, Cadillac Overall Supply, offered him a job as vice president of finance in Detroit.

He became controller of BrassCraft Manufacturing Co. which Masco later acquired. At Masco, he was a division president, a group president, and in 2003 became Masco president and chief operating officer.

"He had unlimited common sense," his brother said. "He made decisions. He wasn't the kind of guy who would sit around and think and ponder and take days and weeks."

Mr. Barry's son, Todd, said: "He had a knack for being able to run an organization. He wasn't a very talkative person. He observed people and situations around him before coming up with his comments. He was a direct and to the point kind of guy."

He was a member of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township.

Surviving are his wife, the former Karen Chester, whom he married June 27, 1965; son, Todd Barry; daughter, Laura Kay; brothers Gordon Barry and Michael Barry, and four grandchildren.

Funeral services will begin at noon Sunday at Ira Kaufman Chapel, Southfield, Mich., with a live video stream via irakaufman.com/funerals/index_video.php?funeralid=8457

The family suggests tributes to Variety Detroit children's charity in Birmingham, Mich., or City of Hope, Duarte, Calif.

This is a news story by Mark Zaborney. He can be contacted at mzaborney@theblade.com.