John M. Buckwalter, the chairman of the board of Steinman Enterprises, died unexpectedly late Wednesday while on a family vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine.

The 79-year-old Manheim Township resident, known to everyone as "Jack," was remembered Thursday for being a savvy businessman, a community supporter who bore the nickname "Generous Jack" and a boss who guided employees to do their best.

"There was only one Jack in town, and that was Jack Buckwalter," said David K. Nikoloff, president of the Economic Development Co., where Buckwalter served on the board.

"He greeted you with a handshake. He looked you in the eye," Nikoloff said. "He treated you with respect and like you were his best friend. They broke the mold when they made Jack."

Buckwalter was chairman and director of Lancaster Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era and the Sunday News. Buckwalter spent 64 years at Lancaster Newspapers, his entire working life.

In 2004, he also was named chairman of Steinman Enterprises, which includes Lancaster County Weeklies Inc., Lancaster Farming Inc., Intelligencer Printing Co., Delmarva Broadcasting Co., Steinman Coal Corp. and Steinman Park Restaurant Inc. The companies employ 616 full-time workers and 217 part-time workers.

Business associates and friends said Buckwalter was a corporate visionary with a deep integrity, but also a man with a playful sense of humor.

People who spoke about Buckwalter were truly saddened by his death but they also remembered him with laughter and fondness.

"He always had a twinkle in his eye," said S. Dale High, chairman of the High Companies, who worked with Buckwalter on the sometimes thorny development of the Lancaster County Convention Center and Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square hotel. "No matter what was going on, you always had the feeling with Jack that it was going to be OK."

Despite community opposition and roadblocks along the way, Buckwalter was tenacious about the project, which had a $177.6 million price tag and was the most expensive project in Lancaster's history when it opened in June 2009.

"I think, at different times, he or I would be discouraged but we would always pick each other up," High said. "He didn't need a lot of picking up. He was always very optimistic."

"He had an elegance and grace about him. He was sort of unflappable at times."

Another partner in the project, Rufus A. Fulton Jr., said Buckwalter had the knack for uniting people behind community projects.

"He never wanted to be chairman of anything," said Fulton, the retired chairman and chief executive officer of Fulton Financial Corp. "He was always looking out for the good of Lancaster, and he was a coalescer. He quietly got things done, and he did it in a nice way.

"He would have made a great ambassador."

The project was directed by the three businessmen's desire to develop the vacant Watt & Shand department store, a downtown anchor, said Fulton, who has known Buckwalter since the two were children.

"We were sitting in a room and saying, 'What are we going to do with Watt & Shand?' " Fulton recalled. "We bought it."

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray, like others, expressed shock and dismay about Buckwalter's death, saying that the community had lost an invaluable leader.

Buckwalter's death follows by 17 days the death of Caroline Steinman Nunan, 85, one of the daughters of the late newspaper publisher Col. James Hale Steinman and a director of Steinman Enterprises.

"To lose Carrie and him, we've lost an awful lot this summer in the way of leadership in our city," Gray said.

Nunan's sister, Peggy Steinman, a director of Steinman Enterprises, said her family is grateful for Buckwalter's "long and distinguished years of service to Lancaster Newspapers, the Steinman Enterprises, the Steinman family and the Lancaster community."

"He was a real pillar of strength for many people," she said.

Gray said he looked to Buckwalter for input.

"I really respected his opinion and judgment," Gray said. "We didn't always agree on things, but we could disagree without being disagreeable."

One thing the two men did agree on was the need to wear a dress hat with a topcoat in the wintertime.

"He said he could recognize me from a block away because I was the only other guy on the street with a hat on," said Gray, remembering Buckwalter, who also usually wore a formal gray business suit with a tie and starched shirt.

"He was old school in every positive sense of that term," Gray said. "For a person of his age, he was not afraid of change … someone who would look ahead and assess where things are going and the appropriate way to accomplish things."

Employees said that Buckwalter wanted to make sure they were doing their best and truly cared about them.

"Jack would test you to make sure that, in your mind, you could support something," said Mike Stief, president and chief executive officer of Intell Printing, a Steinman Enterprise company that offers printing, mailing and fulfillment services. "He knew what questions to ask and challenged you in that way."

Peter Booker, the chief executive officer of Delmarva Broadcasting Co., a Steinman Enterprise company that operates several radio stations in Maryland and Delaware, said Buckwalter had a great wit.

"He would call me up at 6 o'clock in the evening. He was still in the office. I was still in my office. And every time, he'd say, 'Oh, I see you're taking another half-day again today. You're out of there early,' " Booker remembered.

When Booker would travel to Lancaster for business meetings, he would park in the newspaper-owned parking garage.

"As an executive, I would get a free pass. And he would always say, 'Did you come into the garage for free today? Well, don't leave before I give you your bill,' " Booker said, laughing.

He also described Buckwalter as genuinely caring about his employees, particularly during the recent challenging economic times.

"We knew we were going to have to do some really tough financial things, things we would prefer not to do," Booker said. "But Jack was a pretty consistent fighter for not hurting employees too much, not taking away too much."

Buckwalter started at Lancaster Newspapers as a teenage messenger, working a variety of positions and moving up the ladder until he reached his position as chairman.

His father, the late Isaac Z. "I.Z." Buckwalter, worked for the company for 43 years.

After graduating from McCaskey High School, Buckwalter graduated from Franklin & Marshall College and earned a master's in business administration from Harvard Business School.

Willis Shenk, a retired board chairman of Lancaster Newspapers Inc., said Buckwalter's schooling prepared him well.

"Jack had a good, solid business education," he said. "He knew values and knew how profits are to be made."

After graduating from Harvard, Buckwalter served in the U.S. Army with childhood friend Paul A. Mueller Jr., a retired president judge of Lancaster County Court who lives in Willow Street. While in the Army, the two concocted various business ventures, Mueller recalled.

"Jack had his MBA and I had my law degree, and we were making 50 cents an hour," Mueller remembered of their service in the mid-1950s. "Jack and I thought, 'Well, we got to do something to earn a little more.' "

They tried a Good Humor business. That failed. They thought about selling market baskets, but realized there weren't any markets in South Carolina, where they were stationed.

That's when the young businessman in Buckwalter saw an opportunity and purchased several U-Haul trailers, convincing a couple of service stations near Fort Bragg and Fort Jackson to rent them to customers.

"He was always thinking about business," Mueller said. "He had a map and these different-colored pins. He was like a warlord during World War II with ships and tanks. Jack had his pins for where his U-Haul trailers were."

After serving in the Army, Buckwalter returned to Lancaster and worked in Lancaster Newspapers' advertising department. He and his dad drove to work together.

Mueller and Buckwalter eventually were among the 18 businessmen, doctors and lawyers who meet every Monday for lunch at the Hamilton Club in Lancaster. The group calls itself the Wash Day Club and will celebrate its 110th year in November.

The group has 18 members because there are 18 places at the table at which they regularly dine. It is named after a group of professionals who worked downtown and whose wives, on laundry day, told them not to come home for lunch. The men started to meet on those days and have lunch together.

The club members make small talk about baseball — Buckwalter was a big Phillies fan — and sometimes help each other to fill out The New York Times Crossword puzzle. Buckwalter often was ribbed about the local newspaper.

"If there was a misprint in the newspaper or somebody didn't get their Sunday News delivered on time, we always gave Jack a hard time about it," Mueller said. "He'd dish it right back."

One of the club's unwritten rules is that when one of its members is in the hospital, he gets his choice of a book or bottle of whiskey.

"Jack was in the hospital once and he never got anything. He was very upset," Mueller said, laughing.

Club members also took note of the small, handheld recorder Buckwalter carried with him everywhere. If he found something interesting or important, he would pull it from his pocket and make a verbal note.

"That thing was never out of his clench," Mueller said.

Another longtime friend, Joe Bumsted, who lives at Willow Valley, said Buckwalter "loved his family like crazy."

He also enjoyed playing golf with friends. Once in a while, he would make a wager. A very small one.

"He was known for that," Bumsted said. "He was very generous but he didn't like to bet."

During his career at Lancaster Newspapers, Buckwalter was involved in many of the company's most significant investments, including its purchase of a $13.5 million "flexo" press, with which this newspaper has been printed since October 1988.

The new press was placed in the production building constructed in 1982 on South Queen Street.

Just as important, though, was Buckwalter's vote with other members of the board of directors in 1978 to keep the business in downtown Lancaster. They had been considering a move to the suburbs, across the street from the former Lancaster Stockyards at what is now the U.S. Postal Service property.

"The thinking was that this was probably the best decision for Lancaster Newspapers, but undoubtedly the best decision for the community," Buckwalter said in a 2006 profile.

Buckwalter ushered the newspaper business through recent trying times, as newspapers nationally saw circulations and advertising revenue plummet. Last year, Lancaster Newspapers combined its two daily editions, the Intelligencer Journal and Lancaster New Era, into a single newspaper. It experienced some staff cuts along the way.

Buckwalter remained committed to the print product as well as the more recent online edition of the paper.

The circulation of the daily paper is 80,842 and Sunday's paper is 95,872. Online daily visits average almost 54,000.

Harold E. Miller Jr., president and chief executive officer of Lancaster Newspapers, said, "During Jack's many years of service, he distinguished himself with all those who worked with him with his pleasant, enthusiastic manner, his level-headedness and his sense of humor. He was always upbeat and engaging, with a spring in his step."

Buckwalter, he said, loved the challenges of being involved in the newspapers' enterprises, and he tirelessly prepared for every meeting.

Buckwalter was active in numerous nonprofit groups.

He was a founding member of the Lancaster Alliance, a nonprofit coalition composed of top executives from businesses in downtown Lancaster and people who have taken an interest in seeing the city prosper.

At the time of his death, Buckwalter also was on the boards of the James Street Improvement District, Economic Development Co. as well as Lancaster Alliance. He had previously served on the boards of the United Way, the American Heart Association and Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry and was a former trustee of the Rock Ford Foundation.

He also had served on the boards of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and the International Newspaper Advertising Executives.

Buckwalter is survived by his wife of 55 years, Sara "Sally" Tucker Buckwalter, and three daughters: Bonnie, wife of Richard Heilig of Leola; Joan, wife of Michael Krayer of Lancaster; and Julie, wife of Allen Jayne of North East, Md.

He also is survived by eight grandchildren and pre-deceased by one grandson, Andrew T. Jayne.

His funeral arrangements are pending.

cstauffer@lnpnews.com

tmurse@lnpnews.com