"Procurement had a reputation for being corrupt and disorganized. Lou turned it around with his incredible integrity and administrative ability. His purchasing reforms and practices led to reduced payment for goods and services," Rendell said. "Lou was a delight to work with. He had a smile that could light up a room, and he had a great sense of humor."
As procurement commissioner, Mr. Applebaum implemented Rendell's campaign pledge to privatize some city services, including hiring a cleaning service for City Hall and a security company to provide guards at the Art Museum.
In November 2001, when he announced plans to resign, Mr. Applebaum told The Inquirer: "We reorganized the Procurement Department; we fully computerized it. Took an old, slow-moving process and modernized it to where all of our bids appear on the Web."
"Lou did a spectacular job. He reinvented the procurement function to make government massively more efficient," said David L. Cohen, who was Rendell's chief of staff.
Before joining city government, Mr. Applebaum had been controller, vice president, and then owner of A. Pomerantz & Co., a Philadelphia-based office furniture and supply distributor and retailer. Mr. Applebaum was the No. 2 man in the family-run firm in 1982 when company president Lester Pomerantz was killed with his wife in an auto accident in Yugoslavia.
Mr. Applebaum later told The Inquirer that, with the Pomerantz family's blessing, he took over that night, working through shock and sadness to save the business and the jobs of hundreds of employees.
