7/29/2009 Henry E. Singleton, a Founder Of …
September 3, 1999
Henry E. Singleton, a Founder Of Teledyne, Is
Dead at 82
By ANDREW POLLACK
Henry E. Singleton, a brilliant engineer who co-founded and built Teledyne Inc. into one of the
nation's largest and most enduring conglomerates, died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. The
cause was brain cancer, his family said. He was 82.
Dr. Singleton made an early mark with technological developments, including designing an inertial
guidance system now used in military and commercial aircraft. But he became known more for his
financial wizardry, as he built up his company through more than 100 acquisitions and later made
Teledyne a major investor in other companies.
''He understood how to move between real assets and financial assets in a way you don't see
today,'' said Leon G. Cooperman, chairman of Omega Advisors, a Wall Street investment firm. ''He
was the most brilliant industrialist that I've ever met, and I've met many.''
At its peak, Teledyne had revenue of nearly $5 billion, with a diverse mix of businesses including
specialty metals, unmanned aircraft, insurance, swimming pool heaters and Water Pik shower heads
and tooth cleaners. Teledyne merged with the Allegheny Ludlum Corporation in 1996, and the
company is known today as Allegheny Teledyne, based in Pittsburgh.
Dr. Singleton headed Teledyne from its founding in 1960 until 1986 and remained its chairman until
1991. He retired as a director in 1997, but still owned 7.2 percent of the stock. Forbes magazine
estimated his wealth at $750 million, making him one of the nation's 400 richest people.
Ramrod erect and stern in business, Dr. Singleton was described by those who knew him as
extremely brainy. He could recite lengthy passages from Shakespeare and other poets and also
liked to play chess without looking at the board, keeping the positions of the pieces in his head.
Some of his business strategies like low spending on research and development were criticized, but
Dr. Singleton paid little heed to critics. He kept to himself, rarely giving interviews or communicating
much with Wall Street.
''He really didn't care what other people thought,'' said Arthur Rock, a pioneering venture capitalist
who provided the initial financing for Teledyne and served on its board for 33 years.
''His style was to really stay in his office and to think things up and to get other people to carry them
out,'' Mr. Rock said. He added that by his calculations, Teledyne's stock rose an average of 25
percent a year in the 25 years that Dr. Singleton was the chief executive.
In a rare interview with Business Week magazine in 1982, Dr. Singleton disclaimed having a long-
term plan for Teledyne, saying, ''I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan ahead way into the
future.'' In 1978, he told Forbes that Teledyne was ''like a living plant with our companies the
different branches and each putting out new branches and growing, so no one is too significant.''
Mr. Singleton was born in 1916 in Haslet, Tex., on a ranch where his father raised cotton and
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7/29/2009 Henry E. Singleton, a Founder Of …
cattle. He attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., but transferred to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees
in electrical engineering.
He interrupted his studies during World War II to serve in the Office of Strategic Services in
Europe. He also developed a system for removing the magnetic field from ships so they could not
be detected by enemy submarines, according to Mr. Rock.
Dr. Singleton worked at Hughes Aircraft, North American Aviation and then Litton Industries,
where he ran the electronics equipment business until 1960. But he left that year, apparently
because of a dispute with one of his bosses.
With George Kozmetsky, a colleague from Litton, he started Teledyne by buying a military
contractor that had practically collapsed because it lost its main contract, according to Mr. Rock.
In the 1960's Teledyne used its high-priced stock to buy 125 or so companies. Most were left to
be run by their own managers and Mr. Singleton did not interfere, as long as they generated cash
for the parent company in Los Angeles.
In the 1970's, Teledyne stopped acquiring companies because its stock price dropped and because
antitrust regulators were beginning to scrutinize conglomerates. Dr. Singleton then had Teledyne buy
back much of its own stock from shareholders. It is a technique commonly used today by
companies to raise their share prices, but at that time it was highly unusual and attracted criticism.
Teledyne also began investing in other companies, taking big stakes in Curtiss-Wright and Litton,
Dr. Singleton's former employer, among others.
But by the late 1980's and early 1990's, with Dr. Singleton winding down his involvement in the
company and conglomerates out of favor, Teledyne began divesting itself of various operations.
Also, the company became embroiled in military procurement scandals, and it paid more than $100
million in fines to settle charges that it had inflated bills to the Pentagon, falsified tests of components
and exported material for Iraqi bombs.
In his later years, Dr. Singleton went back to his roots in cattle raising, amassing ranches in New
Mexico and California that made him one of the nation's largest individual landowners, according to
his family. He was a student of Western folklore and of the Pueblo Indian culture of New Mexico, a
wine collector and a voracious reader.
Dr. Singleton is survived by his wife of 57 years, Caroline, and by five children and four
grandchildren.
Photo: Henry E. Singleton (1981)
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