The Mackinac Center for Public Policy says goodbye to Peter Secchia, Michigan businessman and diplomat. | stock photo
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy says goodbye to Peter Secchia, Michigan businessman and diplomat. | stock photo
Peter Secchia, a successful Michigan entrepreneur and confidant of U.S. Presidents Ford and Bush, died on October 21 as a result of COVID-19 complications, along with preexisting health problems, according to the Associated Press.
Secchia spent several decades in the lumber and construction industry at Grand Rapids-based Universal Forest Products. After his success as majority owner at the company, Secchia invested in community philanthropy, including the donation of a new building for the Michigan State University School of Human Medicine.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a not-for-profit free-market and limited-government research group, said in a statement that the Center's family was saddened to hear of Secchia's passing.
Peter Secchia, U.S. Ambassador
| Secchia.com
"We are blessed to have known him as a good friend and supporter since the early 1990s," said the Mackinac Center.
Secchia also served on the Mackinac Center's board of advisors. Joseph Lehman, Mackinac Center President, said that Secchia "advanced the best principles of America with wisdom, wit and signature vigor."
"May God bless his memory and his family," Lehman said, according to the Mackinac Center's statement.
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