Terrence G.E. Parmelee Sr. ’68 P’99, on August 26, 2016. A resident of Solon, Ohio, he died at his retreat in Chautauqua County, New York, a few days after celebrating his seventieth birthday with his family.
Terry was born in Bedford, Ohio, and raised in neighboring Solon, where he graduated from Solon High School having won “All-City” honors in basketball from the Cleveland Press. At Kenyon, which he attended after turning down a minor-league pitching contract, he majored in political science, served on Campus Senate, and joined Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was best known, though, for his prowess in basketball, for which he won four letters while setting several College records.
Returning to Solon with his B.A., Terry briefly attended law school at Case Western Reserve University before joining the Meldrum and Fewsmith Advertising Agency as a research analyst. Eleven years later, he was named president and chief executive officer of the firm, based in Cleveland, Ohio, with branches in Brussels, Belgium, Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan.
Terry was among the Cleveland business leaders who helped George V. Voinovich, during his time as mayor (1980-89 ), reverse the city’s well-publicized decline. An early supporter of Voinovich, he committed to keeping Meldrum and Fewsmith’s offices on the city’s Playhouse Square in an era when many corporate headquarters were being relocated to suburban sites. That commitment, at a time when the firm had clients such as Durkee Foods, Glidden Paints, and LTV Steel and annual billings of more than $64 million, not only helped stem the tide but also became a powerful component of Cleveland’s comeback story.
Terry retired from Meldrum and Fewsmith, of which he was then chairman and chief executive officer, in 1987. He then embarked on a second career as a consultant to businesses on civic and state policy matters. He also helped to start several small businesses in the Greater Cleveland area.
A member for many years of the 4 A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies), Terry was a one-time director of the group. He served on Solon’s City Council beginning in the 1970s – when his fashionably long hair was a bit of an issue with fellow Council members – and again in the 1980s. An avid hunter beginning in boyhood, when he and friends would stalk the abundant pheasant in the fields throughout Solon, he often hunted deer at his Chautauqua property with many of the same friends who had hunted with him decades earlier.
Terry is survived by his wife of forty-seven years, Susan Broe Parmelee; a daughter, Whitney Parmelee; two sons, Terrence “Terry” Parmelee Jr. ’99 and Nicholas Parmelee; and three grandchildren.