Henry P. Becton

Director Emeritus, Becton Dickinson and Company

"Bringing a One Hundred Year Old Company into its Second Century"

Henry P. Becton is the retired Vice Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Becton Dickinson and Company. The firm was founded in 1897 by his father, the late Maxwell W. Becton, and the late Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Sr.

The younger Mr. Becton joined the company in the fall of 1937, the same year he graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University. He spent his first year and a half on the road as a salesman for the Company. Returning to the Company's offices in 1939, he was elected to the Board of Directors and he served as Secretary of the Company. In 1944, after he returned from active duty in England during the war, Mr. Becton became the Company's Assistant Treasurer. In 1948, he was made Executive Vice President. From 1961 through February 1987, he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors.

Mr. Becton was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors in May 1972, then Vice Chairman in December 1972. In 1977, he was elected Chairman of the Board again. Then in 1980, at age 65, he retired as Chairman and was Vice Chairman until his retirement from that office in February 1987. He remains Director Emeritus.

Mr. Becton has served as a Trustee of Fairleigh Dickinson University from 1948 to 1994. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of National Community Bank of New Jersey, now National Community Division of The Bank of New York from 1947 to 1993.

Long active in a variety of civic, social and community organizations, Mr. Becton has served as borough councilman of Rutherford, New Jersey; Director of the Bergen County and the New Jersey Chambers of Commerce; Chairman of the New Jersey Employers Legislative Committee; President of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra; and Chairman of the Standing Committee for Clinical Thermometers at the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

Mr. Becton resides with his wife in Englewood, New Jersey.