John C Bierwirth

As president, chief executive and then chairman of Grumman from 1972 to 1988, Mr. Bierwirth presided over a sprawling company with a storied past. It produced some of the Navy’s most renowned warplanes, including the F6F “Hellcat” in World War II, and it built the lunar module that landed on the moon in 1969. It was also Long Island’s largest employer, with more than 23,000 workers, one that used to dispense free Christmas turkeys to its employees at its plant in Bethpage. He graduated from the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and entered Yale, but left to serve in the Navy on a destroyer escort in the Atlantic. After returning to Yale, he and his wife, the former Marion Gerdine Moise, shared a house in New Haven with George H. W. Bush, the future 41st president, and his wife, Barbara. Mr. Bierwirth earned a law degree from Columbia, then worked at the Manhattan law firm White & Case. He was hired in 1953 as an assistant vice president of the New York Trust Company, where his father, John E. Bierwirth, was president. Four years later, he moved on to the National Distillers & Chemical Corporation, where his father had become chairman. Mr. Bierwirth joined Grumman in 1972 as a vice president before becoming president the same year, chief executive in 1974 and chairman in 1976. He retired in 1988, six years before Grumman became the target of a bidding war between two competitors, Northrop and the Martin Marietta Corporation. Northrop emerged the winner, paying $2.1 billion, or $62 a share. Mr. Bierwirth is survived by his wife of 66 years, the former Marion Moise; his sons John E. and Warren; his daughters Marion B. Woolam and Susan B. Arbios; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.