James E. Burke was the chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson from 1976 to 1989, and worked at the company for forty years.
Burke was born on February 28, 1925, in Rutland, Vermont. He earned his Bachelor of Science at College of the Holy Cross in 1947 and his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1949.
Burke is credited for having grown Johnson & Johnson to its current size and prominence, but he is perhaps best known for his crisis management when it was found that Tylenol capsules had been poisoned with cyanide in 1982. After his retirement, he was made of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA). For his contributions to reducing substance abuse among children, president Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
