Robert Galvin Dies in Chicago

Chicago, IL, Oct. 14, 2011 -- Robert Galvin, 89, a long-time chief executive of Motorola and Six Sigma pioneer, died Oct. 11.

Galvin was CEO of Motorola for almost three decades, and was instrumental in the development of the Six Sigma quality system, which is widely used in manufacturing today. Motorola engineer Bill Smith was the developer of the system and Galvin became one of its leading proponents.

Robert Galvin took the reins of the company in 1959 after the death of his father and 31 years later annual sales had grown from $290 million to $10.8 billion. His firm developed the first cell phone prototype.