John Louis Panulas, son of Louis N. (Gregory) and Helen Panulas passed away peacefully on November 19. Born in Stamford, Connecticut on October 25, 1922, he received his Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with honors from Georgetown University in 1949 and his Master of Business Administration from New York University in 1953.
A World War ll veteran with five battle stars, John was a sergeant major in the 289th Combat Engineering Unit and was involved with the interception, analysis and input of signals in Europe from 1942 through 1946.
As part of the G-2 Intelligence apparatus, his work centered upon the evaluation of proclivities of those whose agendas required clarification, with respect to Euro-American objectives. In turn, the aggregation of his work and that of his military colleagues was integral to the broader Allied intelligence effort which, in varied ways, encompassed the telemetry of G-2 interrelated with the decryption of the orange, PURPLE and MAGIC codes and their transmission to coordination points in Washington, D.C., as well as the British Security Coordination in New York City and MI-6 in London.
Of greatest significance was his work after V-E Day and during 1946, when he and a small cadre of colleagues utilized intelligence collection and analysis efforts to assess, among the various affected players in Europe and the United States, psychological readiness for the then prospective Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.
The international dimension of his endeavors spanned into a business career that commenced in 1949 at the Shell Oil Company, where, as an executive within both the chemical and petroleum divisions, he developed marketing and financial systems that were noted for their cost efficiencies and efficacy in delivery speeds.
In 1971, he was asked by the Georgia-Pacific Corporation to originate the distribution system that would carry the company into the initiation and expansion of chemical marketing that included phenolic resins, lignin and other compounds utilized in the development of construction materials, household cleaning products and automotive fluids.
An avid sportsman and cartoonist, with a passion for classical and jazz music, John was active in the alumni affairs of Georgetown University, where he was a fundraiser for both the School of Foreign Service and the university-at-large. In addition, for many years, in various capacities, he played a significant role in Georgetown’s Alumni Admissions Program.
In a philosophy guided by Jesuit tenets and certain of his early plenipotentiary advisory efforts to ensure the safe passage and conduct of Eastern European refugees to the United States, John maintained that world peace hinged upon a well-informed public and, in that context, diplomacy would always find its expression in the everyday press of personal and professional endeavors across a broad swath of life activity.
That philosophy extended to the Church of the Archangels in Stamford, Connecticut, where he was a member. In the late 1960’s, with a view to relating the procedure of worship to matters of ethics and justice, he undertook, in association with a number of colleagues, an effort that entailed two elements. The first sought to relate the abstractions of theology to broader philosophical constructs such as those advanced by Plato’s Parable of the Cave and the much later work of Karl Jaspers. The second attempted to illuminate complementarity and divergence, as they pertain to the preconception of goodness and practical human behavior.
Predeceased by his parents, his sister Ann and brother Nicholas, John is survived by his wife, Evanthea, his son, John Gregory, daughter Lydia, son-in-law Michael, and grandchildren Danielle, Nicholas and Micaela.
John will lie in repose from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., on Tuesday, November 24 at the Church of the Archangels, 1527 Bedford Street, Stamford, Connecticut. Immediately following the wake – at 10:30 a.m. – the funeral service will be held. He will be interred at Putnam Memorial Cemetery, Greenwich, Connecticut with Military Honors.
In lieu of flowers, a contribution may be made to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.
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