Convention Center's Norman Glindmeyer Submitted by N.O.V.A. September 2006 Times Picayune 09-07-2006 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Norman J. Glindmeyer, an advertising executive who was a force in developing the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, died Sunday of Alzheimer's disease at the Louisiana War Veterans Home in Jackson. He was 80. Mr. Glindmeyer, the former president of Naegele Outdoor Advertising, was a member of the board that runs the Convention Center while it was being planned for the riverfront. Mayor Dutch Morial appointed him to the panel around 1980, said his son, Norman Glindmeyer Jr., and Morial's successors reappointed him until Mr. Glindmeyer resigned in 1995. "He was there from the ground up," the younger Glindmeyer said, adding that his father boasted that the building, which originally was the Great Hall at the 1984 world's fair, opened "on budget, on time and free of scandal." He became the organization's vice president. Anticipating the large role in the local economy that would be played by the Convention Center and the events it would bring to town, Mr. Glindmeyer proposed giving the name Convention Center Boulevard to the segment of South Front Street running alongside the building, said his daughter, Sharon Reuther. A suggestion Mr. Glindmeyer made for the building saved his life. Realizing that the Convention Center's meetings would attract thousands of people, he said a medical team should be on hand to administer emergency care. Tulane University Hospital got the contract. The Thursday before the 1997 Super Bowl, Mr. Glindmeyer was in a group that visited The NFL Experience, an interactive football-related exhibit near the Convention Center's upriver end. Traffic was fierce, and by the time Mr. Glindmeyer arrived, he was complaining of chest pains, his son said. "When he bent over to hike a football between his legs, he hiked it and collapsed" with a heart attack, his son said. "Someone running the exhibit radioed for the medical team, and they were there in a matter of minutes." A lifelong New Orleanian, Mr. Glindmeyer graduated from S.J. Peters High School and served three years in the Marine Corps in the Pacific theater during World War II. After his discharge in 1946, he sold cars and was an insurance adjuster before joining Industrial Sign Co. as a salesman. He became a sales manager, and, after the company was bought by Naegele Outdoor Advertising, Mr. Glindmeyer was named its vice president and, in the early 1980s, its president. He retired in 1991. He was a former president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Louisiana. In addition to his children, survivors include his wife, Wilda "Gwen" Glindmeyer, and a grandchild. A memorial service will be held Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Greenwood Funeral Home, 5200 Canal Blvd., New Orleans. Visitation will begin at 10:30 a.m. Burial will be in All Saints Mausoleum. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.