After taking a degree at Penn’s Wharton School and serving as a flight officer in World War II — “we were ready to go to Okinawa" when the atomic bombs ended the war, he told the Inquirer — he returned to Philadelphia, invested in factory buildings, and raised his family in Elkins Park. He later had homes in Palm Beach, Fla., and on Rittenhouse Square. He also became a partner in the company that his father founded, expanding into the metals business through another company, Penn Galvanizing, which bought Belmont Iron, one of the largest steel-fabricating companies in the East Coast construction business, in 1960.