This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.
Peter Secchia rarely boasted about his success, but he often marveled at it.
At 25, he went to work as a salesman for a lumber company that grossed $1 million annually. He ultimately worked his way up to chief executive and transformed it into a global conglomerate, with annual sales of $1.6 billion by the time he retired in 2002.
Buoyed by his financial success, he emerged as a major donor to his alma mater, Michigan State University, and a civic leader and philanthropist in…
