Victor D. Schmalzer, who served at W. W. Norton & Company from 1974 to 2000, most recently as chief financial officer, died on January 12 at his home in Brentwood, N.H. He was 73.
Schmalzer was born in Queens Village, New York on October 28, 1941, and was educated at Loomis Academy and Harvard University. After his graduation in 1963, he joined American Book Company, and then moved to Liveright Publishing Corporation, where he ran the business side of that distinguished publishing firm.
When Liveright was acquired by W. W. Norton & Company in September 1974, Schmalzer came to Norton as well. He was appointed a director of Norton in 1979 and became treasurer of the company in 1982. Throughout his tenure at Norton, he also served as an E. E. Cummings estate trustee and was an authority on the life and work of Cummings.
A lifelong outdoorsman, Schmalzer retired from Norton in March 2000 to move to New Hampshire with his family.
In a note to the staff upon Schmalzer’s death, Norton president Drake McFeely noted, “Any history of Norton in the 25 years Vic worked here would show his fingerprints (and, no doubt, his penciled initials) on almost every initiative this firm involved itself in during those years.”
