2006 Rochester Hall of Fame: Their leadership created the city’s largest law firm

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Thomas Hargrave and T. Carl Nixon made a mark on Rochester by spearheading the growth of the city’s largest local law firm. Hargrave also led Eastman Kodak Co. for two decades.
The two senior partners of Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle LLP helped build what today is known as Nixon Peabody LLP, a national firm with more than 600 attorneys. Nixon and Hargrave grew the firm by offering shrewd legal counsel and by cultivating relationships with the community’s business leaders.
Nixon, in 1911, and Hargrave, in 1915, joined the law firm of Hubbell, Taylor, Goodwin & Moser, which had been in existence since 1875. Both men made partner, and in 1929 the firm became Hubbell, Taylor, Goodwin, Nixon & Hargrave, and Nixon became a senior partner.
In 1927, at the request of George Eastman, Hargrave had begun splitting his time between the law firm and legal work at Kodak. While Nixon took on increasing responsibilities at the law firm, Hargrave began to ascend the corporate ladder at the photo company.
He started as general counsel and in 1932 became the youngest vice president in Kodak history. Two years later, he joined Kodak full time, serving as president from 1941 to 1952 and chairman from 1952 to 1962.
Hargrave was president at a time when Kodak needed both his business skills and his keen legal sense. During his tenure, Kodak solidified its dominance of the photography business and navigated the governmental and legal challenges of monopoly. Hargrave guided Kodak’s handling of the 1954 consent decree that separated the sale and processing of Kodachrome film, and he directed the company’s approach to contractual and antitrust matters.
Under Hargrave’s leadership, Kodak more than quintupled sales, from $181 million to $989 million, and guided Kodak’s extensive involvement in wartime efforts during World War II.
Nixon and Hargrave earned their way to the top in their careers while serving the Rochester community through a variety of organizations.
Nixon was born in 1890 in Rochester, the son of a Gleason Works employee. During his career with Nixon, Hargrave, he and the firm represented a wide array of Rochester businesses, including Kodak, Bausch & Lomb Inc., Rochester Telephone Corp., Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., Gannett Co. Inc., Lincoln Rochester Trust Co. and Gleason Works.
In addition to serving on the boards of Bausch & Lomb, RG&E, Rochester Telephone and the University of Rochester, Nixon was very active in Republican politics locally, statewide and nationally. He often collaborated with his friend and colleague, Carl Hallauer of Bausch & Lomb. In many respects, he was a voice for his business clients in his political activities.
In the 1930s, Nixon helped save the Museum of Arts and Sciences during the difficult Depression years. From 1950 to 1952, he supervised the state court system as one of four members of the governor-appointed State Judicial Council.
A longtime baseball fan, Nixon was on the board of directors of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Rochester Red Wings and helped raise the money needed to keep the Red Wings in Rochester in 1957. He died in 1967.
Hargrave, born in 1891, grew up in homesteaded Nebraska. During World War I, he became a soldier and won the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Cross for his “extraordinary heroism” as a machine gun captain. During World War II, he led Kodak’s war efforts and in the late 1940s served as the first chairman of the National Munitions Board. In 1948, he received the Army’s Certificate of Merit for his own and Kodak’s war service.
In addition, Hargrave served as a chairman of the Lincoln Rochester Trust Co. and a director of Westinghouse Electric Co., Gannett, RG&E, and the Rochester Hospital Fund. He also chaired Red Cross campaigns, served as a trustee of the University of Rochester, and sat on the executive committee of what today is known as the United Way of Greater Rochester. He won the Presidential Certificate of Merit in 1948, the Rochester Civic Medal in 1949 and the Rochester Rotary Club award in 1952. Hargrave died in 1962.
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09/22/06 (C) Rochester Business Journal