Edward J. Donley, 95, former chairman and chief executive officer of Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and a local and national leader in early-childhood education, died April 1, 2017 from complications of pneumonia.

He was born Nov. 26, 1921, in Detroit, Mich.

During the Depression, his family moved back to their farm near Richmond, Mich., and lived in a one-room log cabin built by his great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant, in the 1850s.

After high school, he won a scholarship to Lawrence Technological University in Detroit and earned a mechanical engineering degree in 1943.

He was then hired by a new company, Air Products, to design portable oxygen generators for Allied bombers in World War II.

He was Air Products’ 22nd employee.

Today, Air Products is No. 288 on the Fortune 500 and employs about 16,000 people worldwide.

He and Inez Cantrell, his secretary at Air Products’ Chattanooga, Tenn., plant, wed on Oct. 24, 1946, and were married 66 years until she died in 2013 of Alzheimer’s.

The couple had three children, 10 grandchildren and an ever-growing bevy of great-grandchildren.

Air Products grew rapidly by developing new technologies to supply gases at low cost to the Defense Department and steel industry.

He became vice president of sales in 1957, president in 1966, CEO (1973-86) and chairman (1978-86).

He served on many business and nonprofit boards.

He was a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (chairman 1986-87), the Chemical Manufacturers’ Association, and the Business Roundtable.

He was a director of American Standard (chairman 1992-93), Mellon Bank, Cooper Tire, Koppers Co. and PP&L.

He served on the Grace Commission, NASA Advisory Council and National Endowment for Democracy and was a trustee of Cedar Crest College, Allentown Art Museum and WLVT.

He helped create the predecessor of Lehigh Valley Health Network in the 1970s, was a trustee of LVHN and the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust, and helped found Lehigh Valley Hospice in 1980.

Education was his great passion. He and his wife actively supported Community Services for Children, the Allentown Library, KidsPeace, Lehigh Carbon Community College and the DaVinci Science Center.

When the couple received CSC’s lifetime advocacy award in 1996, then-president Pat Levin said: “Your lives reflect the meaning of philanthropy in its purest form: the love of mankind.

“For all the children and families who ask only that they, too, may have a chance at a better life, we thank you.”

The couple gave most of their assets to The Donley Foundation, a trust run by their family that supports early-childhood education.

He served on the boards of Lawrence Tech (chairman 11 years), Carnegie-Mellon University, ACT, Pennsylvania Board of Education, National Assessment Governing Board, and United Negro College Fund.

He helped found Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children and chaired the Lehigh Valley Business-Education Partnership.

He received numerous honorary degrees, including Lawrence Tech, Lehigh, Muhlenberg, Cedar Crest and Lafayette.

The Society of the Chemical Industry awarded him its highest honor, the Chemical Industry Medal, in 1980.

He won the Pennsylvania Society’s Gold Medal in 1986.

His survivors include three children Martha Robb and spouse John of Sunapee, N.H., Thomas E. “Tom” Donley and Cynthia of York, and John Donley and Michele of Oak Park, Ill.; 10 grandchildren Cantrell “Catie” Skehan and Sean and Megan Hewitt and Jeffry of York; Edward “Ted” Donley and Aileen of Atlanta; Cara Donley, Jennifer Convey and Tim, and Brendan Donley of Oak Park; Andrew Robb and Cristin of Rowayton, Conn.; W. Gavin Robb of Atlanta; and Christopher Robb and Peter Robb of Sunapee; and the fourth generation of Cynthia Donley, Avery Hewitt, Adriana Robb, Jameson Robb, Elizabeth Skehan and Thomas Skehan; and brothers Lawrence Donley and Kathleen of Crestwood Mews, N.J., and Michael Donley and Karen of Oxford, Mich.

Asked for advice at an Air Products 2014 question and answer event, he said: “Take the job you have today, do the best you can, work diligently at it, look around you and see when there are other possible opportunities.

“Out of that nature, that spirit, that desire - great things happen.”

His memorial service will be 10 a.m. April 22 at First Presbyterian Church, 2344 Center St. Bethlehem.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations go to Community Services for Children, 1530 Hanover Ave., Allentown PA 18109 (cscinc.org) or to a charity of one’s choice.

Arrangements made by Bachman, Kulik and Reinsmith Funeral Home, Allentown.