Joseph Neubauer

Following in the footsteps of Leopold Stokowski, Marian Anderson, Louis I. Kahn, and Richardson Dilworth, two members of the Barnes Foundation board have been named recipients of the Philadelphia Award. Aileen Roberts and Joseph Neubauer will share the coveted civic prize, established in 1921 by Ladies' Home Journal editor Edward W. Bok, for their active roles in moving the Barnes to Center City. Neubauer, as much as he shuns attention, admitted yesterday to a bout of pride.

Joseph Neubauer, best known as benefactor to some of the region's top cultural organizations, stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Aramark Corp. after 29 years as its leader. Aramark, one of Philadelphia's largest companies, with a global workforce of 250,000, has hired Eric J. Foss, 53, a former PepsiCo Inc. executive, to succeed Neubauer as president and chief executive. The move marks the end of an era for the food-services and facilities-management company, which has known just five chief executives since 1936.

Aramark, the food-service provider formerly known as ARA Services Inc., said yesterday that it had acquired Harry M. Stevens Inc., which operates food and drink concessions at some of the nation's biggest arenas and ballparks. With the newly acquired contracts, Aramark, which has operated stadium concessions around the country since 1966, will now provide service at the homes of 28 teams in baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Aramark officials would not disclose the price of the deal, which gives the Center City-based company rights to venues in nine states and Puerto Rico.

The chairman and chief executive of Aramark Corp., Joseph Neubauer, and his wife, Jeanette, have pledged $1 million to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to endow the museum's senior conservator job, to be called the Neubauer Family Chair of Conservation. The job is held by P. Andrew Lins. The donation matches a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help the museum endow its senior positions. H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, chairman of the museum's board of trustees, said that since the museum began its current capital campaign, it has received money to endow six senior staff positions and five fellowships.

ARA Services Inc., the Philadelphia service conglomerate, announced yesterday the cash purchase of WearGuard Corp., a Norwell, Mass., company that sells work uniforms and clothing. ARA did not disclose the terms of the deal. WearGuard employs about 1,000 people and has annual revenue of $120 million. The company sells its work clothing through catalogues to small and medium-size businesses. WearGuard also has a clothing division for big and tall men, King Size, and a men's shoe operation, E.T. Wright.

Aramark Corp. said yesterday it had signed an agreement to acquire ServiceMaster Co.'s facility-services business for $800 million. Aramark, which provides food, child-care and laundry services worldwide, employs 6,000 people at its headquarters on Market Street in Philadelphia. The privately held company reported sales of $7.3 billion and net income of $168 million for fiscal 2000. It employs 185,000 people worldwide. ServiceMaster's Management Services group, based in Downers Grove, Ill., serves institutional health-care, education and business sectors and has 18,000 employees.

Shortly before 8 on Tuesday, with the long morning sunlight coming in low over the city, Ellsworth Kelly's The Barnes Totem finally settled into its permanent home outside the new gallery of the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway. The slanting sunlight caught the bead-blasted steel surface of the 40-foot sculpture, brightening its matted gray and propelling geometric shadows onto the limestone panels of the new Barnes building nearby. Gusty wind Monday had delayed the installation a day - no one, and certainly not the 88-year-old artist, wanted an eight-ton artwork swirling uncontrollably high above 20th and Callowhill Streets.

The Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore will soon get a taste of Philadelphia. Aramark, the Center City-based operator of food and souvenir operations at a num ber of national and state parks nationwide, said yesterday that it will buy TW Recreational Services Inc. for $130 million. The deal will give Aramark new operations at more than 20 parks in 10 states, including Yellowstone National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion Canyon National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

The planned sale of computer company Dell Inc. to founder Michael Dell , buyout firm Silver Lake Partners , Microsoft, and other financiers marks the end of a couple of familiar periods at the busy junction of dollars and data. The sale price, $24.4 billion, sounds like a lot; at $13 and change a share, it's a premium for a stock that's been slipping down toward single digits. But it's less than a quarter of the $100 billion-plus (up to $58 a share) that Dell was worth in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, back when its personal computers and laptops were flying from factories and bets on Dell's prospects were the hottest contracts, drawing put and call orders for the jostling bright-jacketed traders on the basement floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange , which held the Dell monopoly by grace of the national stock-options cartel.

There is nothing in the deep backgrounds of either Joseph Neubauer or Aileen Roberts that quite augurs the passion, imagination, and sheer stubbornness required to move an embedded cultural monument and build it anew. Yet that is exactly what Neubauer and Roberts have helped achieve, and on Thursday they will receive the coveted Philadelphia Award, the civic honor established in 1921 by Ladies' Home Journal editor Edward W. Bok, in recognition of their efforts. The award, given for their central roles in bringing the Barnes Foundation from Merion to Philadelphia and finding the financial wherewithal and architectural panache to pull it off, will be presented, appropriately enough, at the foundation's just-opened building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

IN THE REGION Insider trading charged The U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia charged Timothy McGee, of Philadelphia, with insider trading, saying that McGee learned of the pending acquisition of Bala Cynwyd insurer Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp. by Tokio Marine from a Philadelphia Consolidated executive McGee knew through Alcoholics Anonymous. The two-count indictment of McGee, 48, alleges that he made $292,000 from illegal trades. The indictment also alleges that McGee tipped a friend to the pending sale of Philadelphia Consolidated.

Joseph Neubauer, best known as benefactor to some of the region's top cultural organizations, stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Aramark Corp. after 29 years as its leader. Aramark, one of Philadelphia's largest companies, with a global workforce of 250,000, has hired Eric J. Foss, 53, a former PepsiCo Inc. executive, to succeed Neubauer as president and chief executive. The move marks the end of an era for the food-services and facilities-management company, which has known just five chief executives since 1936.

Aramark Corp., one of Philadelphia's largest companies, has hired a former PepsiCo executive to succeed longtime chief executive Joseph Neubauer. Eric J. Foss joined the privately held food-services and facilities-management giant as its new president and CEO Tuesday. Foss, 53, retired as CEO of Pepsi Beverages Co., a $20 billion division of the soft-drink maker, on Dec. 9. That makes the CEO succession at Aramark something of Pepsi generation phenomenon. The 70-year-old Neubauer had held several senior positions at PepsiCo in the 1970s, including the head of its Wilson Sports Goods division before joining what was then called ARA Services at its chief financial officer in 1979.

Shortly before 8 on Tuesday, with the long morning sunlight coming in low over the city, Ellsworth Kelly's The Barnes Totem finally settled into its permanent home outside the new gallery of the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway. The slanting sunlight caught the bead-blasted steel surface of the 40-foot sculpture, brightening its matted gray and propelling geometric shadows onto the limestone panels of the new Barnes building nearby. Gusty wind Monday had delayed the installation a day - no one, and certainly not the 88-year-old artist, wanted an eight-ton artwork swirling uncontrollably high above 20th and Callowhill Streets.

The artist Ellsworth Kelly was there. Joseph Neubauer, the Barnes Foundation vice chairman and donor extraordinaire, was also there. So were dozens of skilled movers, installers, crane operators, and art handlers. A swarm of project managers and members of the Kelly entourage talked and looked on in the shadow of a giant yellow crane angling from the parking lot of the Barnes' new gallery on the Parkway. They had all turned out Monday morning, waiting, as the artist put it, to "bring something back to Philadelphia" - a monumental sculpture by Kelly, his 40-foot-high, eight-ton, stainless steel The Barnes Totem . The Neubauer Family Foundation made the acquisition possible for the Barnes and, as Joseph Neubauer said, for "everyone in the city passing by. " It is the first public work installed here by Kelly, 88 and an undisputed master of American art, since his massive Transportation Building Lobby Sculpture was quietly removed from the old Greyhound office building on Market Street and sold in 1996.

Following in the footsteps of Leopold Stokowski, Marian Anderson, Louis I. Kahn, and Richardson Dilworth, two members of the Barnes Foundation board have been named recipients of the Philadelphia Award. Aileen Roberts and Joseph Neubauer will share the coveted civic prize, established in 1921 by Ladies' Home Journal editor Edward W. Bok, for their active roles in moving the Barnes to Center City. Neubauer, as much as he shuns attention, admitted yesterday to a bout of pride.