Philip M. Hawley, a member of the University of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees for many years and the retired chairman and chief executive officer of the Carter Hawley Hale Stores, died Thursday (May 25) in Los Angeles. He was 97.

“Phil Hawley was a visionary leader and generous supporter of the University, and we are truly grateful for his many contributions,” Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., said. “The prayers of the Notre Dame family are with his family and many friends.”

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Hawley served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, and then began work with Merrill Lynch in 1946. He went on to start his own manufacturing business before entering the retail field in 1952 in both specialty and department stores. 

Hawley joined the Broadway-Hale Stores in 1958 as a buyer and worked his way through the ranks to become president in 1972. Two years later, the company added his name to become Carter Hawley Hale, and three years after that he became chief executive officer.

He served as chair and CEO for 16 years, building the chain into the largest department store in the western United States. He retired in 1993.

A graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University, he was honored by Harvard as Business School Statesman of the Year in 1989. He was named California Industrialist of the Year by the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1975.

Hawley was elected to Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees in 1981, serving on its student affairs committee for six years and the finance and investment committees for nine years. He was elected an Emeritus Trustee in 1996 and became a Hesburgh Trustee in 2019. 

An active member of the Business Roundtable and Business Council, Hawley served on the boards of directors of AT&T, the Atlantic Richfield Co., Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, the Walt Disney Co. and Weyerhaeuser Co. He was a trustee of the Haynes Foundation, Huntington Library and Art Gallery and California Institute of Technology.

Hawley was preceded in death by his wife, Mary, and is survived by eight children, four of whom are graduates of Notre Dame, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Arrangements are pending.