Full Text of SR1330 99th General Assembly
SR1330 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | SENATE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to | 3 | | learn of the death of James Liautaud of Cary, who passed away | 4 | | on October 23, 2015; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, James Liautaud served in the United States Army in | 6 | | Korea; he earned his mechanical engineering degree from the | 7 | | University of Illinois; and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, James Liautaud's interest in business began when | 9 | | he went to work selling books door to door for the Grolier's | 10 | | Encyclopedia company; in the late 1960s, he become a pioneer in | 11 | | a new technology called composite molding and
accepted an offer | 12 | | to become President and co-owner of the Capsonic Group, a | 13 | | plastics and
electronics manufacturing firm in Elgin that used | 14 | | this technology; over the next few years, he
started the | 15 | | American Antenna Company, which made equipment for the
| 16 | | then-trendy citizens band radio industry, and K40 Electronics, | 17 | | which manufactured a radar
detector designed to give drivers a | 18 | | chance to break the speed limit without running afoul of the
| 19 | | police; he received 80 United States patents and numerous | 20 | | design awards; and | 21 | | WHEREAS, Five
summers in a row, James Liautaud and a club | 22 | | of fellow self-made millionaires would gather in Elgin with |
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high-performance Porsches, Ferraris, and Corvettes; they | 2 | | would take off along I-90 at 100 mph or
faster in a 400-mile | 3 | | Cannonball Run-style car race all the way up to the Duluth, | 4 | | Minnesota or
Hayward, Wisconsin areas; to minimize traffic | 5 | | tickets, the racers would even arrange for a helicopter to
fly | 6 | | overhead and warn where troopers were lying in wait; in 1986, | 7 | | they finally arranged with authorities to run that year's | 8 | | Cannonball Run on a legal
basis - basing the competition not on | 9 | | which CEO could drive the fastest but on which one could
| 10 | | achieve an average speed closest to 52 mph; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, James Liautaud later sold his business interests | 12 | | (which by then also included the Blue Rhino bottled-gas
company | 13 | | and 2 insurance firms) and joined the faculty of the University | 14 | | of Illinois at Chicago; besides teaching there as a clinical | 15 | | professor, he endowed and created what became the Liautaud | 16 | | Business School; and
| 17 | | WHEREAS, James Liautaud loaned his son, Jimmy John, $25,000 | 18 | | after graduating to start what would become Jimmy John's | 19 | | Gourmet Sandwiches; in 2008, Jimmy John donated $1 million to | 20 | | Elgin Academy on the condition that it rename the academy's | 21 | | high school as the "Liautaud-Lyons Upper School"; and
| 22 | | WHEREAS, James Liautaud is survived by his wife of 54 | 23 | | years, Gudaityte "Gina" Liautaud, and 4 children; therefore, be |
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| 2 | | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL | 3 | | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of | 4 | | James Liautaud, and extend our sincere condolences to his | 5 | | family, friends, and all who knew and loved him; and be it | 6 | | further
| 7 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 8 | | presented to the family of James Liautaud as an expression of | 9 | | our deepest sympathy.
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