William Spoor, the Pillsbury Co. chief executive officer who led the U.S. food maker’s acquisition drive two decades before it was bought by General Mills Inc., has died. He was 91.
He died on Nov. 14 at his home in Salt Lake City, his son, William, confirmed Wednesday in a telephone interview. No cause was given.
With Spoor as CEO and chairman from 1973 to 1985, Pillsbury bought some of America’s most well-known brands, including Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Green Giant frozen vegetables and Godfather’s Pizza. The Minneapolis-based company’s purchases helped boost sales almost fivefold to $4.7 billion while profit rose more than ninefold to $192 million during his tenure, according to a 1988 New York Times article.
“You must have a vision and a clear understanding of where you’re going, what you’re trying to accomplish, and how you are going to accomplish it,” Spoor said, according to the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, which honored him with an award in 1986.
Pillsbury, which traced its roots back to a Minneapolis- based flour miller in the 1860s and developed space food for NASA a century later, called Spoor out of retirement in 1988 to help reverse an earnings decline. Almost five months later, it was bought by Grand Metropolitan, now part of London-based Diageo. In 2001, Pillsbury was sold for $10.4 billion to Minneapolis-based General Mills, the maker of Cheerios breakfast cereal and Yoplait yogurt.
Other Pillsbury brands acquired while Spoor was CEO included the restaurant chains Steak & Ale and Totino’s Pizza, as well as American Beauty Macaroni Co., Van de Kamp’s frozen seafood and the Bumble Bee tuna company. He also helped expand the Burger King fast-food chain, which Pillsbury bought in 1967.
Spoor overhauled the company when he took control in 1973, selling its poultry business and later jettisoning all its non-food units, such as housing, wines, a magazine and toilet cleaner, according to a 1981 article in the New York Times. Known for an abrasive manner, he fired managers and recruited new executives who later deserted him.
“Spoor, a Dartmouth man, often acts like a petulant autocrat,” Fortune magazine said in a 1987 profile. “When things go wrong, he yells, screams, and is quick to fix blame.”
The Pillsbury board had fought against the sale of the company to Grand Metropolitan in 1988, using antitrust laws and a poison-pill defense strategy to hinder the process. Only after a Delaware court gave its consent to the planned purchase did Pillsbury’s board begin to negotiate, according to a December 1988 article in the Times.
“If you want to see a cat-and-dog fight, just let someone make a move on us,” Spoor said in June of that year, according to the newspaper. Spoor filled the job only temporarily until the board appointed Philip L. Smith to replace John M. Stafford in July 1988.
William Howard Spoor was born on Jan. 16, 1923, in Pueblo, Colorado, to Doris Slaughter Spoor and Charles Spoor.
He was raised and educated in Denver, where his family moved after his father lost his job during the Great Depression, according to the Horatio Alger Association. Spoor helped the family financially by mowing lawns, shoveling snow, digging ditches, loading watermelons and as a plumber’s helper, it said.
Excelling in sports, Spoor won a scholarship for athletes at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1941 before his studies were interrupted by World War II. He volunteered for the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division in 1942, training at Camp Hale in the mountains west of Denver. Spoor remained in the United States during the war, serving as a second lieutenant in the infantry.
After earning a degree in history and education at Dartmouth in 1949, he joined Pillsbury and worked as an area sales manager for its export division in New York, later becoming a vice president and general manager of international operations. He attended Stanford University’s executive- development program in 1965.
He was a director and executive committee member of the United Negro College Fund and helped raise $32 million for the Minnesota Orchestral Association. Spoor received Dartmouth’s presidential medal for outstanding leadership and achievement.
Spoor is survived by two daughters, Melanie and Cynthia; a son, William; a brother, T. Richard; and six grandchildren. His wife of 63 years, the former Janet Spain, died in January. An avid fisherman, Spoor moved with his wife in 2005 from their home in Wayzata, Minnesota, to Salt Lake City in order to be closer to their children and grandchildren.