Used his 'Political Savvy' to help develop leaders

Joel R. DeLuca, 60, an author and a lecturer on organizational behavior, died of heart problems Wednesday at his home in Berwyn.

Mr. DeLuca was president of Evergreen Business Group, a consulting firm that he founded in 1998 to deal with leadership development and executive coaching.

His wife, Kathleen, said that with his 1990 book,

Political Savvy

, "he built a seminar that has reached thousands of managers, engineers and employees."

He presented the seminar across the country and in Europe, she said, and the book was recommended by the business magazine Fast Company.

Mr. DeLuca received a Congressional National Leadership Award, his wife said, and toured China with a group promoting leadership practices.

He was a 1970 graduate, with a degree in physics, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He earned a master's degree in physics from Ohio State University in 1971, and an MBA from the University of Dayton in 1976.

After earning his doctorate in organizational behavior from Yale University in 1981, Mr. DeLuca led organizational planning and executive development at what is now Sunoco until 1989.

In those years, Mr. DeLuca was on the advisory board of the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California.

From 1989 to 1993, his wife said, he managed human-resource planning at the professional-services firm that is now Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

And from 1994 to 1998, she said, Mr. DeLuca taught a leadership program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

One of Evergreen Business Group's first assignments was codesigning two award-winning leadership programs with the Ford Motor Co., his wife said.

Mr. DeLuca was an Air Force officer who worked in NASA programs.

Besides his wife, Mr. DeLuca is survived by his father, Joseph R.; his brother, Michael; and sisters Casey Lynch, Barbara Edwards, Teresa Merelman, Tina Charles and Marisa Frank.

Friends may call after 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Rigby Harting & Hagan Funeral Home, 15 E. Fourth St., Media, where a funeral will begin at 8.