Gertrude Geraldine Michelson

MICHELSON--Gertrude G. "G.G.", who rose from humble origins to become a trail-blazing executive and an influential presence at the highest levels of American business, academia, philanthropy, and public service, died peacefully at her Greenwich Village home on Saturday morning. Born in 1925 in Jamestown, NY, G.G. graduated from Penn State University and from Columbia Law School, where she was one of six women in the class of 1947. At Columbia Law, she met and married Horace Michelson, a classmate whose quiet brilliance perfectly complemented G.G.'s sparkling extroversion. He introduced her to another great love, the New York Yankees, for whom she developed what this newspaper would decades later describe as an "unswerving devotion." After law school, G.G. joined the Executive Training Squad at R.H. Macy & Co., the retailer, where she would continue to work, in a series of increasingly senior positions in labor relations, human resources, and external affairs, until her 1992 retirement (She remained a Senior Advisor and Director until the company's merger with Federated Department Stores, at which point she joined that company's board). With each appointment, to Vice President in 1963, then to Senior Vice President for Labor and Consumer Relations in 1970 and to Macy's New York Executive Committee and Board of Directors that same year, G.G. was almost invariably the first female to have risen so high. But she quickly won over those unaccustomed to dealing with women in managerial roles, establishing a reputation as a firm but fair-minded labor negotiator (she was responsible for collective bargaining with the Teamsters and fourteen union locals, representing a total of twenty thousand employees)...