SUSSEX, Wisconsin (AP) Quad/Graphics Inc. co-founder Betty Quadracci, who also was president of Milwaukee Magazine and a champion of the arts, died Monday at age 75, the printing company said.
Quadracci died at her Wisconsin home, surrounded by family. The company didn't provide details on the cause of death, but her sister said Quadracci recently had pneumonia.
"She was a fighter. She had polio and almost died in the 1940s," Quadracci's sister, Sue Ewens of Shorewood, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "She had to learn to walk all over again. She always tried harder than everybody else just to make up."
Quadracci co-founded Quad/Graphics in 1971 with her late husband, Harry. After starting in a vacant factory in Pewaukee with a single printing press and just 11 employees, the Sussex-based company now has 25,000 employees worldwide at more than 65 printing plants and dozens of support facilities.
In 1983, Quadracci became publisher of Milwaukee Magazine and was later named president. In 2012, she was inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club's Media Hall of Fame.