He turned grief into security law for campuses

Howard K. Clery Jr., 77, of Bryn Mawr, who cofounded Security on Campus after his daughter was killed at Lehigh University in 1986, died of a heart attack Tuesday at his winter home in Palm City, Fla.

Mr. Clery and his wife, Constance, established the nonprofit organization in King of Prussia after the death of their youngest child, Jeanne. Joseph M. Henry of Newark, N.J., was convicted of murdering and raping the 19-year-old while burglarizing her Lehigh dorm room in Bethlehem, Pa. The Clerys alleged in a lawsuit against Lehigh that Henry had been allowed to attend classes and had been given a campus job despite a history of "violence, alcohol abuse and mental illness."

The lawsuit was settled, and the proceeds went to Security on Campus, whose goal is to inform the public, including prospective students and their parents, about serious crime problems on college campuses.

Mr. Clery retired as chairman of Rapidforms Inc. in 1990 to devote more time to the organization.

Its intense lobbying led that year to the passage of the federal Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act, later renamed the Jeanne Clery Act. The law requires colleges to make public any homicides, rapes, assaults, robberies and burglaries committed on their campuses. In addition to the federal law, the Clerys secured passage of campus public-safety legislation in more than 30 states.

In 1990, Mr. Clery told a reporter: "When your daughter is slaughtered, you have two choices - curl up and let the world go by or fight back. In fighting back, Connie and I have felt not only are we helping others, but also ourselves."

In 2005, Security on Campus received a $334,000 federal grant to pay for materials and staff to present seminars to university officials about their legal responsibilities to report campus crime, support crime victims, and compile and disclose crime data.

A native of Virginia, Mr. Clery played varsity football at Arlington High School. At 15, he developed polio. Despite a year of rehabilitation, he wore a heavy leg brace and walked with canes for the rest of his life. He never complained, and the disability hardened his resolve to become a successful businessman, his son Benjamin said.

Mr. Clery also continued to pursue sports, playing tennis with two hands for a while and becoming a 17-handicap golfer.

Mr. Clery earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in business administration from Dartmouth College, where he was vice president of the student council.

He began his career as a management trainee at the Gillette Co. in Boston, where he met his wife. She had to quit her job when they married in 1956 because it was against policy for married couples to work in the same office, their son said.

Mr. Clery later was an executive with the Raytheon Co., Royal McBee and Safeguard Industries before buying Rapidforms in Philadelphia with Jack Farber in 1971. As the company's chief executive officer, Mr. Clery made the regional printer of labels, business forms and stationery into a national direct-mail company with $40 million in sales in 1987.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Clery is survived by another son, Howard III.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the Villanova University campus. Friends may call from 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at the McConaghy Funeral Home, 328 W. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.

Memorial donations may be made to Security on Campus, 133 Ivy Lane, Suite 200, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406.