Richard Manoogian

Richard Manoogian died on September 25, 2026, at the age of 90. Masco Corporation, headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, announced his death the same day in a Business Wire statement that did not disclose a cause or place of death. Jon Nudi, Masco's president and CEO, said there were not enough words to adequately recognize his lifelong accomplishments and impact, and remembered him as a philanthropist, renowned art collector, and community leader as well as a business executive.

As of this writing, no cause of death or funeral arrangements have been made public. In lieu of flowers, Masco said he would be honored by donations to the AGBU Alex and Marie Manoogian School, St. John's Armenian Church, and the Mackinac Island Community Foundation, specifically the Richard and Jane Manoogian Fund for the Conservation and Preservation of Open Spaces. A company tribute page is at masco.com/richardmanoogian.

Richard A. Manoogian was born in 1936 in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Alex Manoogian and Marie Manoogian (née Tatian). Alex, who had immigrated from Armenia, founded Masco Screw Products Company in 1929 and later transformed it through the Delta single-handle faucet. Richard grew up in the metropolitan Detroit area and studied economics at Yale University. He joined Masco in 1958. Masco's historical account notes that as a recent Yale economics graduate he helped start the company's new faucet plant in Greensburg, Indiana, briefly interrupting that work to serve with the Michigan Air National Guard before returning to the company in 1959.

Manoogian was elected to Masco's board of directors in 1964 and became president and chief operating officer in 1968, while his father remained chairman and CEO. In his mid-twenties he designed an aggressive but disciplined expansion program of internal development and acquisitions. During 1960 to 1980, Masco moved deeper into building and home improvement products and acquired more than 100 companies. Masco listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1969.

In 1985 he succeeded as chairman and chief executive officer, only the second person to hold both titles in the company's history. Under his leadership sales grew from about 55 million dollars when he joined to more than 8 billion dollars by the time he stepped down as CEO in 2007. Diversification into furniture and industrial spin-offs such as MascoTech drew shareholder criticism in the 1990s; he later exited furniture and refocused the company, including reducing his own salary to one dollar annually in a mid-1990s turnaround effort. He served as executive chairman from 2007 to about 2009 and was named chairman emeritus in 2012. He also sat on boards including Ford Motor Company and JPMorgan Chase.

Manoogian was married to Jane Manoogian. Together they were long-time patrons of Michigan arts and Armenian cultural causes. He first joined the Detroit Institute of Arts board in 1968 and later became chairman emeritus of that board. He chaired the Alex and Marie Manoogian Foundation and was president and treasurer of the Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation. He was among the foremost private collectors of nineteenth-century American paintings. He also served on bodies such as The Henry Ford Board of Trustees, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Fine Arts Committee of the United States Department of State, and the Mackinac Island State Park Commission. He was long associated with the Grosse Pointe area and with Mackinac Island. Public sources describe the couple as having three children; individual names are not consistently confirmed in available reporting.

Manoogian's legacy rests on two intertwined achievements: building Masco into a global leader in branded home improvement products, and sustaining a family tradition of philanthropy centered on Detroit's cultural institutions and Armenian education. He served on Masco's board for nearly fifty years and as chairman for more than twenty-seven, and he remained chairman emeritus until his death. The Delta faucet brand his father pioneered remained a cornerstone of the portfolio he enlarged through decades of acquisitions.

In the arts, his and Jane Manoogian's foundations and gifts shaped Southeast Michigan museums and Mackinac Island open-space conservation. Masco and civic partners marked his board service with tributes such as a HomeAid America workforce scholarship gift in his name when he concluded active board service. Detroit business and arts communities remembered him as both the architect of one of the region's largest public companies and one of its most consistent arts patrons.