Gates Mills-- Warren Buffett called The Plain Dealer Monday to recommend a news obituary about Ralph Schey, who died Sunday, Sept. 11, at home in Gates Mills.
"He was a terrific business person," said Buffett, who ought to know one. The investment wizard snapped up Cleveland's Scott and Fetzer conglomerate in 1986 and kept Schey at its helm.
"There wasn't one thing I could have added to the management of Scott Fetzer," said Buffett. "What really impressed me was [Schey's] breadth of knowledge about each of the companies. He could have run any or each."
Schey, 87, led many other area organizations. He chaired the Cleveland Clinic, founded and chaired the Primus Venture Fund for regional investments, started the Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Centre at Ohio University and served on many boards.
Buffett has praised Schey before. In a 1994 newsletter for his Berkshire Hathaway investment group, he wrote that Schey "establishes the right goals and never forgets what he set out to do. On the personal side, Ralph is a joy to work with. He's forthright about problems and is self-confident without being self-important."
Former Senator George Voinovich praised Schey this week. "He was a visionary, unusually forward-minded and imaginative. He also taught me to use a fly rod."
Voinovich gave Schey much of the credit for Cleveland's comeback in the 1980s and, as a trustee, Medical Mutual's survival.
Loyal Wilson, a managing director of Primus, called Schey "Primus' biggest advocate and fiercest protector of our brand and mission. Ralph was tough-minded and fact-driven."
Schey liked to play four golf balls at a time. His son, Larry, said, "It was symbolic. He'd always have four things in the air at the same time."
As a child, Schey sold and delivered foreign-language newspapers and potato chips on Cleveland's West Side, learning each customer's favorite spot for the goods. So he fit in at Scott and Fetzer, some of whose companies sell World Books, Kirby vacuums and other goods door to door. He liked to say, "Nothing happens until somebody sells something."
He preached hard work and high stakes. "Few are willing to do what is necessary to be successful," he told The Plain Dealer in 1981. "An entrepreneur gambles all on an idea which is really unique... I look for a return of a minimum of 10 times my risk capital investment in five years."
Schey graduated from West Tech High School. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and earned five Bronze Stars.
He earned a bachelor's degree in commerce from Ohio University and a master's from Harvard Business School. He became a sales trainee at Cleveland's Leisy Brewing Company and an industrial engineer at General Motors.
From 1952 to 1969, Schey worked for Clevite, a big manufacturer of warplane bearings and more. He worked partly in Napoleon and Milan, Ohio, lived in Bellevue and Oberlin and summered in Huron. He rose to executive vice president and arranged Clevite's sale in 1969 to Gould Electronics.
Schey became president of the Joseph Mellen & Miller brokerage for two years, then worked as an independent venture capitalist. He became Scott and Fetzer's president in 1974 and chairman two years later.
He moved the headquarters from rental space in Lakewood to a new home on Clemens Road in Westlake. At various times, he oversaw more than 8,000 workers in 14 states and Canada, plus distributors around the world.
In 1984, he tried to sell Scott and Fetzer to its executives and employees. The U.S. Labor Department called the employees' 40 percent shares too low, and competing offers arose from other prominent investors, including Ivan Boesky.
After two years of well-publicized drama, the company accepted a friendly offer from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Schey stayed in charge for another 14 years before retiring in 2000, at age 75.
He and his wife, the former Luci McCollum, visited Buffett in Omaha nearly every Christmas season. Said Buffett, "We had good times together."
After Oberlin, Schey lived in Shaker Heights, Lakewood, Westlake and Gates Mills. He fished at the Pine Lake Trout Club and swam at the Cleveland Athletic Club. He also liked to work wood.
He started Primus in 1983, with sponsorship from Cleveland Tomorrow, and chaired it until 2000. A series of six Primus equity funds have invested more than $900 million in more than 120 regional companies.
Schey donated both to Republican and Democratic campaigns. He was named to the Ohio University board by Governor Richard Celeste and to the Ohio Board of Regents by Governor Voinovich.
He also served on Sherwin-Williams' board, Harvard University's advisory board, the visiting committee of Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management and more. He chaired the Clinic from 1993 to 1997 and created a Ralph and Luci Schey Foundation Center for Advanced Cognitive Function there.
The Clinic gave him its highest designation, a distinguished fellow. Ohio University gave him an honorary doctorate and other top awards.
Survivors: Wife, the former Luci McCollum; son, Larry of Athens and Kathy Schey Hunter of Aurora; and four grandchildren.
Contributions: Ohio University Foundation for the Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Centre Endowment, P.O. Box 869, Athens, OH 45701, or Cleveland Clinic, Attn: Schey Center for Advanced Cog nitive Function, P.O. Box 931517, Cleveland, OH 44193.
Arrangements: Schulte & McMahon-Murphy, Lyndhurst.