Chuck Denny, who died at 88 this month, was recruited from Honeywell in Europe to run failing ADC Telecommunications in 1970.
Denny secured a $2 million lifeline loan that bought the time he needed to take ADC from death's doorstep to a thriving company worth more than $500 million by the time he retired in 1991.
And Denny's push for better products and a consultative but decisive approach worked. ADC became a Minnesota technology star, posting 21% compound annual revenue growth and solid profitability. Denny credited much of the success to the creativity and hard work of ADC's employees.
"I had an incredible group of people to work with," Denny recalled in 2010. "We just did what you're supposed to do."
Denny did well in business. He covered the education of his children and grandchildren. He also expected them to make their own way. He shared his wealth broadly with scholarship funds, job-training programs and nonprofits that uplifted the disadvantaged.
"Chuck was the most remarkable person I have known," said Steve Rothschild, the former General Mills executive who started Twin Cities Rise, the empowerment and training nonprofit on Minneapolis' North Side. "He was a man of character, integrity, great intellect and judgment. I admired his courage to speak up when he saw a wrong. I admired his kindness, his courteousness … and his genuine interest in other people, regardless of their station in life."
Dick McFarland, a friend and retired Minnesota CEO, once called Denny a Renaissance man for his varied interests and decency.
Friends recall that Denny cared for his wife, Carol, for years at home. She died in 2012 of Alzheimer's disease.
