Biography of industrialist Wallace E. Carroll, written by B.C. alumnus, Edward D. Miller. Wallace E. Carroll is the namesake of Boston College's Carroll School of Management and was chairman and CEO of Katy Industries, Inc. Wallace Carroll was one of the earliest Boston College graduates to systematically build and lead a large, diversified business enterprise. Throughout his life he was committed to producing economic benefits rather than reaping their personal rewards. A business leader and philanthropist, he remained a private man intensely dedicated to the circle that formed his extended family. The son of a Taunton, Mass, blacksmith, Carroll worked as a bricklayer's helper and railroad worker while attending Boston College. He later pursued graduate studies in business at MIT, Harvard Business School, New York University and Northwestern University. Carroll worked for New York Telephone Cos. in the early '3os before joining a gage manufacturing company in Providence, R.I. in 1934. Two years later, the company sent him to manage sales in its Chicago branch. In the Midwest, he founded Size Control Cos., a gage manufacturing company, in 1941, which prospered supplying the war effort with machine parts. Using profits from his early ventures, Carroll acquired other metals and machine concerns, which comprise the core of Katy Industries, Inc., a congolmerate of more than 43 companies and divisions formed in 1970. He was also chairman emeritus of CRL, Inc., a firm privately held by the Carroll family, which includes American Machine and Science, Inc. and International Metals and Machine, Inc. During his career, Carroll has participated in government trade missions to Ireland, Egypt, India and Portugal, and has served on the boards of the Sonntag Foundation for Cancer Research, the Chicago Boys Club, DePaul University, American Ireland Fund and Catholic Charities. In 1957, Boston College bestowed an honorary doctor of laws degree on Carroll. He was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by DePaul University in 1966.
