Robert McNeil, an executive and philanthropist, died on May 20, 2010. He earned his B.S. from Yale University in 1936, a B.S. from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (now the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia) in 1938, and an honorary D.Sc. from USP in 1970. He joined the business founded by his grandfather, which became McNeil Laboratories, in 1938, and led the team that created Tylenol. He became chairman of the board in 1956.When McNeil Laboratories was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1959, he remained chairman of the subsidiary until 1964. A collector of American fine and decorative arts, he was a commissioner of the National Portrait Gallery, a member of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, and a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he endowed the senior curatorial and director’s position for the Center for American Art. The Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies was renamed the McNeil Center for Early American Studies in his honor in 1998. He established the Barra Foundation to support Philadelphia-area institutions, which has published 39 books, including Philadelphia: A 300 Year History (1982) and Historic Houses of Philadelphia, Historic Sacred Places of Philadelphia and Landmarks of Philadelphia (all, 2008).
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