John Jacob Barnhardt, Jr. ’42

John Jacob Barnhardt, Jr. ’42 of Charlotte, N.C., died July 19, 2007. He enrolled at Davidson College but transferred to Cornell University after his freshman year in order to pursue his interest in chemical engineering. At Cornell, he won a McMullen Scholarship that paid his full tuition and was a member and president of Kappa Sigma social fraternity. Following graduation from Cornell in May 1942, he began active service as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy, where he was a staff officer in Allied Forces headquarters and aide de camp to General John W. Coffey. He participated in the planning and staging of most of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean Theater, including land operations in Tunisia and amphibious operations in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and the invasion of southern France. He was promoted to captain in 1945 and returned to civilian life after a tour of duty as commandant of the Ordnance School in Fort Crook, Neb. He began a thirty-four year business career as a junior research chemist with the Dyes and Chemicals Division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. of Wilmington, Del. He progressed through sales and technical assignments in Deepwater, N.J., Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C., to management positions in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Wilmington, Del. His positions with DuPont included district manager, regional manager, national sales manager, and eventually divisional marketing manager. Following retirement in 1980, he divided his time between homes in Charlotte and Hilton Head Island. He and his wife moved to the Cypress Club of Charlotte in 2004. For several years he served as a volunteer tax counsel for the elderly, working with the Shepherd’s Center of Charlotte. He was a dedicated Rotarian in several cities and continued as an active member for more than twenty-five years. He was a member of Christ Episcopal Church and the Piedmont Club of Charlotte. His wife of sixty-three years, Mabel Fishburne Barnhardt, died in September 2006. Survivors include three children: John J. Barnhardt III, an attorney in Charlotte; Richard F. Barnhardt, a member of the faculty at Woodberry Forest School, and Elizabeth B. (Betsy) Sessoms, a mortgage banker on Hilton Head Island. Four grandchildren also survive him: Bradford H. Barnhardt, Amanda M. Barnhardt, John Addison Barnhardt, and Elizabeth Brookner Barnhardt.