Remembering Michael Bozic, college trustee

Home News Remembering Michael Bozic, college trustee

He was a Harley rider. He loved boats. President Larry Arnn valued him as a friend of the college.

Michael Bozic was a 16-year Hillsdale College Trustee who died unexpectedly at the age of 74 while working near his boat in Maryland on Sept. 30.

“He had the gifts of emphatic language that you would expect from such a person,” Arnn said in an email. “He loved the freedom that he, a little boy from Pittsburgh, had enjoyed to build and to serve.”

According to Arnn, Bozic loved his family — his wife, Stephanie, and their two children — and he loved the freedom to follow his conscience.

“Every night, we had dinner together. Every morning, he kissed his children goodbye. Every night, he read them bedtime stories. He was a good father,” said Stephanie Bozic, his wife of 47 years, in Bozic’s TribLive obituary.

“His career never came home with him. When he wasn’t at work, he was just Dad,” said his daughter, Amanda Pyper of Chatham, New Jersey, in the obituary.

For a man so focused on family, Bozic had many accomplishments.

He began his career at Sears Roebuck and Company where he climbed from a management trainee to various leadership roles including CEO of Sears Merchandise Group.

After 28 years with Sears, Bozic took over and transformed a then-bankrupt Hills Store Company into an award-winning regional discounter.  In 1995, he worked as Chairman and CEO of Levitz Furniture Corporation and in 1998, became the Vice Chairman of Kmart Corp. Most recently, Bozic was a director and trustee of Morgan Stanley Mutual Funds and part-owner of Orlando Harley Davidson.

“Mike worked for the biggest companies in the most senior positions,” Arnn said. “He operated upon a massive scale, not millions but billions, not in regions but nations, not in the rich or the poor or the middle but in every home.”

This expertise made him an excellent chair of Hillsdale’s marketing and outreach committee, Arnn said.

“Mike Bozic was an important part of the board and will be missed by all of us he has left behind,” Chairman of the Board Bill Brodbeck said in an email. “Mike was a quiet, warm, caring individual who had a depth of experience in business and industry.”

Arnn emphasized that Bozic was also a great adviser and encourager.

“Mike knew everything. He was a superb guide, and I can recall no conversation with him when he did not offer me some thoughtful encouragement, some word of praise that he had considered and delivered as an act of charity,” Arnn said.

Arnn described Bozic as “a man’s man,” who was principled and did not like the people who he, and Arnn, were sure are leading America astray.

“He was fully a man, and being so he was an inspiration to know,” Arnn said.

His memorial service was Tuesday at 11 a.m. Instead of flowers, his family asked donations to be made to Hillsdale College or the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Bozic is survived by his wife, Stephanie, daughter Amanda, son Peter, and two grandchildren, Ellie and Lucy Pyper, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.