March 26, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
When John Hanley retired at age 61 as chief executive of Monsanto in 1983, he faced a question, says Forbes magazine (March 23): “What should he do with his still-abundant energy?”
Drawing on the experiences of his wife’s personal battle with alcoholism, Mr. Hanley answered the question by dedicating himself to helping people overcome addiction, says a profile of the couple. With $1-million of their own money and $4-million raised from others, the Hanleys started the non-profit 74-bed Hanley-Hazelden Center, in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1986 to treat alcoholics.
Mr. Hanley later served as chair of the Reagan Administration’s National Citizens Commission on Alcoholism, encouraging medical schools to look at addiction as a disease. And the Hanleys focused their counseling work on treating alcoholics over the age of 55, a group they felt had been neglected.
Douglas Tieman, head of the Caron Foundation, a Pennsylvania treatment center, says Mr. Hanley “isn’t just a guy who has ideas, he’s willing to put in the sweat equity to make them work.”
