Led both Jewel and Nicor through periods of change
Richard Cline led two prominent Chicago-area companies — the Jewel grocery store chain and Nicor, Inc., the parent company of Northern Illinois Gas — through periods of major change in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cline also was a vigorous fundraiser for the foundation set up to support his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He co-chaired Campaign Illinois, a fundraising program that raised more than $1.5 billion between 1993 and 2000.
“He would stand before audiences and never promote himself or anything, but he was so respected and loved that people would say, ‘Our goal is to be like Dick Cline,’ “said retired University of Illinois Foundation President Bill Nugent.
Cline, 88, died of complications from liver cancer on March 19 at his Wheaton home, said his son, Rich. He had received a liver transplant about two decades ago, his son said.
Born in Chicago, Richard Gordon Cline was the son of Katherine Cline, who founded and led the Junior Village nursery school in Glen Ellyn from 1965 until 1986. He graduated from Glenbard High School — now Glenbard West High School — where he ran track and posted a 4:32 time in the mile run in the state finals.
Cline attended the U. of I. at Urbana-Champaign on a naval ROTC scholarship, receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1957.
Cline served in the Navy before joining Jewel’s finance department in 1963. He rose through the ranks, serving as president of the grocery chain’s Osco Drug unit in the early 1970s and becoming Jewel’s president and chief operating officer in 1980.
In 1984, Salt Lake Citybased American Stores, Inc. initiated an ultimately successful hostile takeover of Jewel. One month after Jewel accepted the merger offer, two top Jewel executives quit, and Cline was promoted to be Jewel’s chairman and CEO.
Cline steered Jewel through the closing of the acquisition but opted not to stay afterward.
“Someone (from Jewel) had to stay to put (the two companies) together,” Cline told the Tribune in January 1985.
Cline left Jewel in February 1985 and was named president of Naperville-based Nicor later that year, and he added the title of chairman at the start of 1986. Cline had been on Nicor’s board for the preceding eight years, and observers noted that while Cline had a long career in retail, his experience fit nicely with the increasing need for marketing in the deregulated natural gas distribution business.
“I have experience running a diversified operation, (and) after eight years on the board, I think I know this company pretty well,” Cline told the Tribune in 1985.
Cline moved quickly to reshape Nicor, which had posted losses in 1984 and 1985. With oil prices sagging, Cline worked to divest energy exploration and production businesses and shifted the company’s focus back to natural gas distribution in Chicago’s suburbs.
Cline told the Tribune in 1986 that “some of the steps we took were painful for stockholders, but they were things we had to do. The world of energy has changed.”
Former Nicor CEO Thomas L. Fisher, who worked for Cline and later succeeded him as the company’s CEO, said Cline did a “fabulous job” of improving Nicor.
“He was a highly ethical person, and he was an exceptional (leader) in terms of trying to get all information before making a decision,” Fisher said. “He was always positive, and he never spoke a discouraging word.”
Cline retired as Nicor’s CEO in 1995 and stepped down as chairman later that year. After retiring, he ran Hawthorne Investors, a private investment firm.
Cline served on numerous corporate boards, including Kmart, Ryerson Tull, PepsiAmericas, Hussman International and Northern Trust’s mutual funds, and he also chaired the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 1991 until 1994.
“He was an excellent chairman and an excellent director,” said Michael Moskow, the retired president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. “I think he did a very good job in leading the board.”
Cline also chaired the University of Illinois Foundation’s board and co-chaired the Campaign Illinois program. Cline as co-chair initially set a goal of raising $1 billion but ultimately raised 50% more than that.
“I had to build an endowment, and I turned to him and he just shocked the heck out of me by being receptive,” Nugent said. “He became our chairman of several (programs) and he was also generous himself.”
With his wife, Carole, Cline established the Cline Symposium in 1995 and made the founding endowment to start the Cline Center for the Study of Democratic Governance in 2004, which was renamed the Cline Center for Democracy in 2007 and now is known as the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research.
The center is a group of scholars from six areas of U. of I. at Urbana-Champaign who collaborate using data, software and expertise, and who address real-world problems through interdisciplinary projects.
“We are told that freedom is a universal desire of humankind. This is easy to acknowledge. For those of us raised in conditions of liberty, freedom is so ingrained that we usually take it for granted,” Cline wrote in a 2007 book he wrote, “Echoes of Freedom: Personal Reflections of Richard G. Cline.” “For those of us living in conditions where freedom is denied, it is something we yearn for, are willing to sacrifice personal security to obtain and treasure when achieved.”
In addition to his son, Cline is survived by his wife of 65 years, Carole; two daughters, Patty McDougal and Linda Cline-Raymond; another son, Jeff; 17 grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and a brother, Bill.