American chief executives

Richard David McCormick (born July 4, 1940) is an American business executive.

Joe B. Foster (July 25, 1934 – May 9, 2020) was an American businessman, oilman and philanthropist from Texas. From 1989 to 2005, Foster was chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Newfield Exploration Company, headquartered in Houston. Previously, Foster was chairman of Tenneco Oil Company and executive vice president and director of its parent, Tenneco Inc. He was with Tenneco for 31 years and also served as chairman of the Tenneco Gas Pipeline Group.Foster was born in Arp, Texas, and attended Texas A&M University. He graduated in 1957 with a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering and a bachelor of business administration degree in general business. In May 1997, he was named a distinguished alumnus of Texas A&M University. Foster served as chairman of the National Petroleum Council, an industry advisory body to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, and in 1995–1996 served as chairman of the Offshore Committee of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. He was a director of Memorial Hermann Hospital System and served as chairman of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Greater Houston YMCA, and the Texas A&M Development Foundation. He also served on the boards of Baker Hughes Incorporated and New Jersey Resources Corporation. Foster was chairman and a senior advisor at Tudor, Pickering, and Holt 2008–2016.

Gerald Douglas Hines (August 15, 1925 – August 23, 2020) was an American real estate developer based in Houston. He was the founder and chairman of Hines, a privately held real estate firm with its headquarters in that city. At the time of his death, the company had assets in 25 countries.

Colin Riley McMillan (July 27, 1935 – July 24, 2003) was a United States Assistant Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush during the Gulf War. He was awaiting confirmation as United States Secretary of the Navy in 2003 when he died from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head at his New Mexico ranch.McMillan was the chairman and CEO of Permian Exploration Corporation, an oil exploration company, the chairman of the First Federal Savings Bank in Roswell, New Mexico, and the founder and CEO of McMillan Production Company. He was appointed in 2001 to be the chairman of the Sallie Mae Corporation by President George W. Bush.
McMillan earned his bachelor's degree in geology from the University of North Carolina in 1957. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1960 and in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1960 to 1972, attaining the rank of major.McMillan served in the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1971 to 1982. He ran for the United States Senate seat in New Mexico in 1994 but lost to incumbent Democrat Jeff Bingaman by a 54% to 46% margin. In 2000, McMillan was the New Mexico state chairman of George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
McMillan was survived by his wife, Kay, four children, and eight grandchildren.

James Michael Carey (born May 31, 1974), is an American former professional ice hockey goaltender who played for the CM Knights, Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins, and St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League (NHL). He won the Vezina Trophy for the NHL's best goaltender in 1996. Carey was born in and grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts.

John Crittenden Sawhill (June 12, 1936 – May 18, 2000) was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy and the 12th President of New York University (NYU).
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1936, Sawhill graduated from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1958. He earned a PhD in economics in 1963 from New York University, where he served as professor of economics. He was named president of New York University in 1975, serving until 1979. At a trying time in NYU's history, he received widespread acclaim for bringing about an academic and financial turnaround at the country's largest private university.
His research focused on the nonprofit sector, and he joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1997 as part of the School's Initiative on Social Enterprise. His seminar Effective Leadership of Social Enterprises prepared students for leadership roles in nonprofit management.
Earlier he held several government positions during the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Those included being Deputy Secretary of Energy; Chairman of the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation; Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration (appointed by President Nixon, he resigned that position in October, 1974), and Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, Science and Environment in the Office of Management and Budget. In 1977, he was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.
During his ten-year tenure, The Nature Conservancy became the world's largest private conservation group and protected more than 7 million acres (28,000 km²) in the United States alone.
Sawhill, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, died of complications from diabetes May 18, 2000 at the age of 63. His wife was Isabel Sawhill and his son was James W. Sawhill.

Robert William "Bob" Galvin (October 9, 1922 – October 11, 2011) was an American executive. He was the son of the founder of Motorola, Paul Galvin, and served as the CEO of Motorola from 1959 to 1986.

John J. Donovan (born February 12, 1942) is a former management professor at MIT, and the former president and chief executive of the Cambridge Technology Group, an executive training company. On May 3, 2022, Donovan Sr. was convicted of a dozen felony counts of fraud and forgery in a jury trial, for attempting to steal assets from his son's widow and children.

Stephen Davison Bechtel Jr. (May 10, 1925 – March 15, 2021) was an American billionaire, businessman, civil engineer, and co-owner of the Bechtel Corporation. He was the son of Stephen Davison Bechtel Sr. and grandson of Warren A. Bechtel, who founded the Bechtel Corporation. He was known for expanding the global footprint of the corporation through several of its international projects. Some of the projects executed under his leadership of the company included King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh as well as Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia as well as oil platforms in the North Sea, liquefied natural gas plants in Algeria, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates.
Bechtel also served on the board of General Motors and International Business Machines. He had a bachelor's degree from the Purdue University and a master's degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
At the time of his death, he had a net worth of nearly US$3 billion according to Forbes.