26.10.2015

Derek C. Hathaway 1944 – 2015

Derek Hathaway OBE – past chairman chief executive officer of Harsco -passed away on Thursday last week following an extended illness. He was 71.

Born in Birmingham, England, Hathaway left Moseley Grammar School at 16 and started work as a junior draftsman at a heating and engineering company. He founded Combat Engineering in 1966 and built the UK based company into a sizeable group of engineering businesses, which went public in the 1980s when it was renamed Dartmouth Investments. He stayed with the company after it was acquired by Harsco in 1979.

In 1984 he moved to Harsco’s headquarters in Camp-Hill Pennsylvania as senior vice president operations -Engineered Products. In 1991, he was appointed group chief operating officer and joined the board of directors. He also became a U.S. Citizen that year.

In 1994 he was promoted to chairman and chief executive and was later instrumental in the acquisition of SGB and the group’s entry into the access market. This was followed by the acquisition of Hünnebeck in 2005, which was eventually merged with SGB into Harsco Infrastructure, the majority of which was sold to Brand in 2013.
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Derek C. Hathaway

He retired as an executive of the company at the end of 2007 and stepped down from board of directors in early 2008. Shortly afterwards he was honoured with the Order of the British Empire medal for services to industry and charity, included donations and voluntary work for the Imperial War Museum, the Churchill Museum, HMS Belfast and the aircraft museum in Duxford- all in the UK. He also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations,

He leaves behind his wife of 50 years, Margaret, sons Paul, Matthew and Charles, grandchildren Sophie, Emma, Annabel, Liliana and Hunter.