Newton Allen Campbell

A memorial service will be held at Brown-Wynne Funeral Home at 200 SE Maynard Road, Cary, North Carolina on May 26 at 11 am.

Newton was born on July 2, 1928 and was a resident of Kansas City, Missouri and Prairie Village, Kansas. In 2013, he moved to Cary, NC where he resided at the Waltonwood Senior Living Center. Newton attended Westport High School and Kansas City Junior College. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1949. Newton earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Missouri, Kansas-City in 1970.

Newton began his distinguished career at Burns & McDonnell in 1952 where he worked as an electrical engineer. Due to his leadership and technical expertise, he served in numerous management positions. In 1982, he became president of Burns & McDonnell and in 1983, he was named president of the Armco Professional Services Division of which the firm was a part. In 1985, when Armco divested Burns & McDonnell, Newton led the firm’s former employees to the creation of an employee stock ownership program. This resulted in the firm buying itself back from Armco and becoming 100 percent employee owned.

Campbell served as Chairman & CEO of Burns & McDonnell until his retirement in 1993. During his tenure, the firm was consistently ranked as one of the top engineering firms in the country by an annual industry survey. The firm today has 75 offices globally with more than 13,000 employees.

After his retirement, Campbell was Executive-in-Residence at the University of Missouri Kansas City Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. He also was Executive Engineer-in-Residence at the UMKC School of Computing and Engineering. The Newton A. Campbell Engineering Excellence Scholarship at UMKC was established with the support of Burns & McDonnell.

Campbell received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an alumni achievement award from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Campbell served on the Board of Directors of United Missouri Bancshares and the Oglethorpe Power Corporation. He was a member of the University of Kansas City Trustees and a trustee of the Midwest Research Institute. He served as chair of the Board of Science Pioneers, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the Greater Kansas City Science Fair, and was on the board of directors of the YMCA of the Rockies at Estes Park, Colorado.

Campbell served as a Deacon and Elder of Linwood-United Church in Kansas City, Missouri. He also was a member of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas.

Campbell leaves behind his daughter, Dr. Elizabeth Campbell of Apex, North Carolina and grandchildren Dr. Colin Godwin of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Dr. Sarah Godwin of Cary, North Carolina; his daughter Joyce Campbell Giuffra and her husband Robert Giuffra of New York, New York and grandchildren Elizabeth, Caroline and Robert Giuffra III. Campbell was predeceased by his loving wife of 68 years, Mabel Rose; sister, Mary Francis Elder of California and his parents, Edward Allen and Ida Newton Campbell.

The family requests that memorial contributions be made to Union Station Kansas City Education Fund (unionstation.org) 30 West Pershing Road Kansas City, Missouri 64108.