Courtesy of lifeinlegacy.com
William F. May, a University Trustee and longtime supporter of UR, died on Sunday, Sept. 18 in Greenwich, Conn., at the age of 95. The University flag will be lowered in his memory on Thursday, Sept. 29.
May, who UR President Joel Seligman described in a statement as “an exceptional business and civic leader who served with distinction as a University trustee,” led the American Can Company during a 15-year period of expansion and was instrumental in the founding of the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
A Chicago-native, May earned a chemical engineering degree from UR in 1937, and later completed graduate work in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
The cause of his death was congestive heart failure, according to The New York Times. May served as a dean of the graduate school of business administration at New York University and was also a board member of The New York Times Co.
May became chairman and chief executive at American Can’s Manhattan headquarters in 1965. After being elected to the board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and being charged with the task of giving the center’s film department a presence on par with the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, May recruited new donors and sources of financial support and founded the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a victory that he celebrated at the New York Film Festival in 1975.
Buletti is a member of the class of 2013.
