Tribute: David Johnson (ON 1950)
David Willis Johnson, who attended Newington College from 1947 to 1950, passed away on 19 June 2016.
David was born in 1932 and was brought up on a sheep and cattle station in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, later crediting his early rural life with teaching him self-reliance. He came to Newington as a boarder in 1947: his mother, Eileen, was convinced that Newington was the school for her son by the quality of three Old Newingtonians in the local community.
Known as ‘Fumph’, David had a stellar career at Newington. He won a string of academic prizes and awards and took First Class Honours and eighth place in the State in Geography in his Leaving Certificate in 1950. That year he served as Captain of Moulton House and as Senior Boarder Prefect, in which role he was ‘remembered for his level-headedness and understanding’, as The Newingtonian reported. He was a leader in sport, too, serving as Captain of the 1st XV and the Rifle team (he spent two years in each team) and also rowed in the 1st VIII and competed in the Senior Athletics team.
A Commonwealth and Teacher’s College Scholarship enabled David to gain qualifications in economics and teaching and, again, to lead, serving as Senior Student and captaining the cricket, rugby and athletics teams at the University of Sydney’s Wesley College. A Rotary Foundation Scholarship took him to the University of Chicago, where he became one of the first Australians to gain an MBA, turning his career to the business world.
Starting as a management trainee with Colgate-Palmolive, David was the firm’s Chairman and Managing Director in South Africa by the age of thirty-five. Success at the helm of businesses in the United States led to his appointment as chairman and chief executive of Campbell’s Soup Company in 1990. His business strategies were decisive and aggressive, resulting in expansion and some of the best earnings and strongest sales in the highly competitive food industry. Earning the nickname ‘Quantification Johnson’, he was a demanding leader, famously paying the directors at Campbell’s only in shares, as ‘an added incentive to take your duties seriously’. In 1996 the Campbell’s board was named best Board in America, while, the following year, David was voted by his peers across the country as Director of the Year, which he regarded as his most cherished prize. He retired at the end of that year, taking typically vigorous holidays with his wife Sylvia in which they visited the North and South Poles and followed in the footsteps of explorers Burke and Wills.
In the late 1990s, David privately endowed the Eileen M Johnson Boarding Bursary in his mother’s memory, to enable rural boys to gain the benefits of a Newington education without the burden of boarding fees. In 2008 he was awarded the Newington Medal (International) for his outstanding leadership in business. At the presentation Assembly, he reminded our boys that ‘there are no speed limits on the road to success’.
David passed away at his home in rural Pennsylvania, but was buried alongside his beloved parents in Coffs Harbour.
