In Memoriam

They sold us surfboards and sports cars, Linux, chicken, Miracle-Gro, and vacations among the Eskimo. A fond look back at the remarkable entrepreneurs who died in 2005.

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Dr. Frederick H. Berenstein, 59, Linux pioneer, in New York City. Berenstein was one of the first people to persuade Wall Street that the Linux operating system and open-source software were legitimate rivals to Microsoft. He started several software firms, including Linux Global Partners and Progressive Solutions. His last venture, Ottawa-based Xandros, makes a Linux-based utility that can run Microsoft Word and Excel.

John DeLorean, 80, founder of DeLorean Motor Co., in Summit, N.J. An early fan of offshoring, this would-be auto pioneer (right) set up his factory in Northern Ireland. After producing just 9,000 of the distinctive gull-winged vehicles there, DeLorean was arrested for drug trafficking. Authorities alleged that he tried to sell $24 million in cocaine to raise money for the faltering car venture; DeLorean was eventually acquitted on the grounds that he was entrapped.

Horace Hagedorn, 89, founder of Miracle-Gro, in Sands Point, N.Y. Thanks to suburbanization, Hagedorn's fertilizer grew into an iconic postwar brand.

John H. Johnson, 87, founder of Ebony and Jet magazines, in Chicago. Using his mother's furniture as collateral, Johnson borrowed $500 in 1942 to launch a publishing business, which later expanded into television stations and a line of cosmetics. "Money," he wrote in his 1989 autobiography, "is perhaps the greatest of all civil rights bills."

Mortimer Levitt, 98, founder of Custom Shop Shirtmakers, in Green's Farms, Conn. He authored five books including How to Start Your Own Business Without Losing Your Shirt: Secrets of Seventeen Successful Entrepreneurs--all of them written after he turned 75.

James R. Lewis, 84, and Alice Lewis, 83, co-owners of Lewis Marine Supply, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. This husband and wife team passed away within days of each other in May; the couple had worked side by side for nearly 50 years to build one of the country's top wholesale suppliers of boating equipment.

Jerome Lippman, 92, founder of GOJO Industries, in Akron. Working in his basement in 1946, Lippman invented a special grease-cutting soap that his wife, who worked at a rubber factory, could use. Owing largely to another of his creations, Purell hand sanitizer, GOJO's revenue now exceeds $100 million a year.

John J. McMullen, 87, founder of John J. McMullen Associates, in Montclair, N.J. McMullen was one of the first people to manage shipping lines between the U.S. and China. Later in life, he owned the Houston Astros and the New Jersey Devils, who won two Stanley Cups for him. He is perhaps best remembered for saying, of his minority stake in the New York Yankees, "There's nothing quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner's."

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