James Richardson Houghton (April 6, 1936 -- December 20, 2022) was the chairman of the board of

Corning Incorporated Corning Incorporated is an American multinational technology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies including advanced optics, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The co ...

Early life

Houghton was born in 1936. He is the third son of Amory Houghton, former

U.S. Ambassador to France The United States ambassador to France is the official representative of the president of the United States to the president of France. The United States has maintained diplomatic relations with France since the American Revolution. Relations we ...

, and his wife, the former Laura DeKay Richardson. Among his siblings was older brother Amo Houghton, who served as a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from New York. Houghton earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(A.B., 1958, MBA, 1962).

Career

From 1959 to 1961, Houghton worked at Goldman, Sachs and Company in New York before joining Corning in 1962. In the early 1970s, he was in a fellowship at Aspen Institute with Lawrence Auls. The company was founded in 1851 by his great-great-grandfather Amory Houghton. After holding a variety of management positions, including 12 years as vice chairman, Houghton was elected chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Corning in 1983. After retiring in 1996, he was chairman emeritus from 1996 to 2001; and then served as non-executive chairman of the board in 2001–2002. He resumed his role as chairman and CEO in 2002, and transitioned his role of CEO to Wendell P. Weeks in April 2005. In April 2007, he also transitioned his chairman role to Weeks. He served as a

senior fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Harvard College, a member of the

Harvard Corporation The President and Fellows of Harvard College (also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation) is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards, and is now the oldest corporation in America. Together with ...

Corporate board service

Houghton served on a number of corporate

boards Board or Boards may refer to: Flat surface * Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat ** Plank (wood) ** Cutting board ** Sounding board, of a musical instrument * Cardboard (paper product) * Paperboard * Fiberboard ** Hardboard, a t ...

including:

, ExxonMobil Corporation, MetLife, Inc.,

Corning Museum of Glass The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the

Personal life

On June 30, 1962, Houghton was married to May Tuckerman Kinnicutt at Christ Protestant Episcopal Church in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

. May, a graduate of

St. Timothy's School St. Timothy's School is a four-year private all-girls boarding high school in Stevenson, Maryland. History The school was founded as a school for girls by Sarah Randolph Carter in Catonsville, Maryland in 1882. In 1952, the school moved to Steve ...

and Radcliffe College, was the daughter of Sybil ( née Jay) Kinnicut and Francis Parker Kinnicutt, a niece of decorator

Sister Parish Sister Parish (born Dorothy May Kinnicutt; July 15, 1910 – September 8, 1994) was an American interior decorator and socialite. She was the first practitioner brought in to decorate the Kennedy White House, a position soon entrusted to French i ...

, and a direct descendant of both Chief Justice

John Jay John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the f ...

and

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by History of opium in China, smuggl ...

. Together, they are the parents of: * James DeKay Houghton (b. ), a money manager who married Constance Bradstreet Coburn in December 1994. * Nina Bayard Houghton (b. ), who married Kent George Jr. in 1996. His wife is an author, who published a novel, under the name Maisie Houghton, entitled ''Pitch Uncertain: A Mid-Century Middle Daughter Finds Her Voice'' in 2011. Houghton passed away on December 20, 2022. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/james-houghton-obituary?id=38452623https://www.the-leader.com/story/news/local/2022/12/22/longtime-corning-inc-chairman-james-houghton-dies-at-86/69749686007/

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Houghton, James 1936 births American business executives Corning Inc. Living people Harvard Fellows MetLife people ExxonMobil people People from Corning, New York Harvard Business School alumni

External links