Carl Webster Hulick, a business leader, beloved patriarch, and longtime prominent presence in Southern California social and cultural circles, passed away peacefully on November 16, 2022, in Pasadena, California, surrounded by his family. He was 87.
Born in Mansfield, Illinois, on January 9, 1935, Carl was the son of Dr. Lester Paul Hulick and Mildred Bowman Hulick. Although he grew up in Mansfield, Carl had Bowman family roots in Sikeston, MO of which he was very proud.
Carl graduated in 1952 from Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois. He went on to attend Stanford University, earning his B.A. in 1956. After Stanford, he entered the U.S. Navy and served as a Lieutenant in the Western Pacific Command for 4 years. He then entered Harvard Business School and graduated with an M.B.A. in 1962.
Carl began his career by joining Dean Witter and Company’s Los Angeles office as an account executive. It was the start of his 50 years in the investment business. He managed the Dean Witter offices in Pasadena, Beverly Hills, and Los Angeles, supervising the training of hundreds of account executives over the decades, and was instrumental in creating the Dean Witter Guide to Personal Investing. In the early 1980s, he was appointed Executive Director of Marketing in Dean Witter’s New York office just at the time Sears, Roebuck & Co. acquired the firm. Carl was subsequently in charge of the project to establish financial service centers in 300 Sears stores. Though initially mocked by the press as “Socks and Stocks,” the strategy was a huge success: Sears’s $770 million investment in 1982 became a $3.5 billion public offering and distribution of Dean Witter stock to shareholders in 1993. Dean Witter subsequently merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, the investment banking firm that had managed the valuation and stock sale to the public. Carl retired from Dean Witter, Morgan Stanley, Inc. in 2002, but kept up to date managing a variety of accounts for family and friends.
Throughout his life Carl had a generous capacity for friendship and community engagement. He served on the Pasadena Tournament of Roses committee for 30 years, and was a member of the Stanford Associates, the Stanford Hoover Institution Council, the Economic Round Table of Los Angeles, and the Huntington Library and Gardens Fellow. Carl was a former chairman and board member of Hillsides, a Pasadena facility dedicated to providing a safe place for abused children. He was an active Angel investor and served on the board of several start-up companies.
Carl will be fondly remembered by all for his strong and steady presence, sharp sense of humor, brilliant mind, and boundless intellectual curiosity. His interests and pursuits were wide-ranging, eclectic, and up-to-the-minute, encompassing art, music, science, history, politics, food, and culture. Always enthusiastic about the latest book, theory, or oddity he’d happened upon, he researched topics in depth for papers he’d present to the Economic Round Table, from quantum physics to cowboy art. He loved sharing his passions and encouraged others in their own.
A natural athlete, he enjoyed sports with friends during Lacy Park Tennis days and Golfing at San Gabriel CC, plus many social activities through his memberships at The Valley Hunt Club, The California Club and Annandale GC. Since retirement, he and his wife also enjoyed extensive travels around the world and summers at his second home on Whitefish Lake, Montana. Above all, he cherished his role as husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He was extremely proud of his family.
He leaves behind his beloved wife of 22 years, Nancy McDonald Hulick. He is also survived by his three children from his first marriage, to Jane Woodward Hulick: Mary Rebecca Bendix (Bill) of Wilton, CT, and their children Emma, Alex and Tucker Bendix; Carl Marcellus Hulick (Julianna) of Bakersfield, CA, and their children Christina Coulson (Ryan) and great grandson, Caleb Coulson, Carl W. Hulick II (Jolene) and great grandson Carl Graham Hulick (born on November 21, 2022), and Frank Hulick; and Thomas Woodward Hulick of Sierra Madre, CA, and his daughter Holly Hulick; Through his stepson, John Lovelace (Joyce), he was also grandfather to J.B. Lovelace and Robb Lovelace.
A service for family and friends will be held followed by a celebration of life early next year. Donations in memory of Carl Hulick may be made to Hillsides of Pasadena, California.