College mourns the loss of Edgar S. Woolard
Edgar S. Woolard Jr., a renowned business leader and loyal and involved alumnus of North Carolina State University, died on Dec. 4, 2023, at his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 89.
Woolard graduated from NC State with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1956. He spent his career at DuPont, rising to the role of chief executive officer and chairman of the company’s board from 1989 to 1995. In retirement, he served several companies as a board member and chairman including Apple, IBM and Citigroup.
Woolard began his contributions to his alma mater in the early 1980s, working as an advisor to NC State chancellors, serving on the University’s Board of Trustees and helping to lead two University capital campaigns.
Louis Martin-Vega, a former dean of the College of Engineering, said that Woolard was a very involved alumnus who was always advocating for the College. The two first met at an alumni event soon after Martin-Vega started as dean in 2006.
“He was very proud of being an alum,” Martin-Vega said. “He was always there. He was very encouraging. He liked that we had high aspirations.”
In 2018, Woolard and fellow NC State industrial engineering alumnus Edward P. Fitts Jr. (1961) made a combined $25 million donation that helped to fund a new engineering building on Centennial Campus. Named Fitts-Woolard Hall, the building is home to the College of Engineering’s administration and the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering and Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. That donation represented a key step toward moving the entire College to Centennial. Fitts’ and Woolard’s gift represents the largest gift given for a campus building naming in NC State’s history.
Happy to serve
Fitts met Woolard when he saw an opportunity to invest and contribute to strengthening the pair’s home Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Fitts sought out other alumni to join him, including Woolard, and the two developed a strong friendship through their shared passion for their department.
Fitts knew Woolard by reputation and, since they both spent winters in Jupiter, Florida, he called Woolard to introduce himself. They met over breakfast and Fitts laid out his vision for the department.
“It was over this conversation that I explained what I was thinking about for NC State ISE, and would he consider serving on the five-person committee we were developing,” Fitts remembers. “He said, ‘tell me more,’ and ‘let me think about it.’ Within the next few days, he called and said yes, he’d be happy to serve. What a compliment.”
The two became close friends and co-advisors who worked together on several efforts that benefited NC State, culminating with their gift that named the new building. Along the way, their home department was named the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering to honor Fitts’ support.
Fitts remembered his friend as a thoughtful, creative, intelligent and compassionate leader who, above all, was dedicated to his wife, Peggy, and their children. Woolard retired early from DuPont to spend time with his family and, he said, to repay Peggy for all the years spent supporting him and his business career.
“Ed Woolard was a very special, unique, caring person who touched so many lives during his exemplary time on earth,” Fitts said. “He shall be missed by everyone who knew him.”
Paul Cohen got to know Woolard well when Cohen served as department head in ISE. Cohen is now an emeritus faculty member in the department.
He said that, beyond his financial support of the department, Woolard was also very generous with his time. He was always willing, Cohen said, to talk through issues that he was having as department head or to connect him with important people.
Cohen described Woolard as someone who was easy to get along with and was straightforward with his approach and could always ask just the right questions.
“It didn’t take very long for him to get to the heart of the matter,” Cohen said.
Woolard’s most notable board service may have been with Apple, where he served as chairman during the company’s leanest years in the mid-1990s. The company found success and a cult following for its Macintosh computer but went into a long decline when Steve Jobs was fired as chairman in 1985. Woolard convinced Jobs to return to the company and the two worked closely together to bring Apple back to success.
“I was extremely pleased and proud to have helped Steve Jobs build a strong board, talented management team and a great company,” Woolard said in an NC State Engineering magazine story in 2016. “It was exciting, terrific fun and resulted in an outstanding business success story.”
Fred Anderson, chief financial officer at Apple at the time, told The Wall Street Journal after Woolard’s death that Woolard “was the catalyst for knowing that a leadership change needed to be made.
“If we hadn’t returned Apple to innovation, there wouldn’t have been an iPhone.”
Always a Wolfpacker
Woolard is the recipient of NC State’s Industrial and Systems Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award (2006), Watauga Medal (2001), Meritorious Service Alumnus Award (1998), College Alumnus of the Year Award (1988) and Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award (1988).
He was as supportive of NC State athletics as he was of engineering and was a die-hard Wolfpacker.
Woolard’s other philanthropic efforts included forming the Woolard Family Foundation and actively supporting many causes including Sunday Breakfast Mission, Delaware Art Museum, International Tennis Hall of Fame, Christian Outreach Efforts, Autism Delaware, Meals on Wheels and Christ Church Christiana Hundred.
His funeral arrangements included a request that, in lieu of flowers, charitable donations be considered for the Sunday Breakfast Mission in Wilmington, Del., or for NC State’s College of Engineering.
