Friends, family and co-workers will gather Saturday to remember Bob Campbell, the affable founder of BBC International, who died Feb. 17, 2020. The executive, who had blazed new trails in the children’s shoe business, was 82.
The company said a viewing will be held Friday, Feb. 21, at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home, located at 199 Bleecker Street in New York City, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
A funeral mass will follow the next day on Saturday, Feb. 22, 10 a.m., at the St. Ignatius Loyola Church, 980 Park Ave. at 84th Street, New York.
“After over 63 years in this industry as a pioneer, visionary, philanthropist, friend and mentor to many, he has gone to be with his lord and savior,” read an open-to-the public invitation from the company. “Bobby and his family want us to celebrate his life and remember him as someone who really loved the people in the industry. His wish, in typical Bobby form, is to invite everyone from the industry to come to his funeral to celebrate his life.”
Campbell, who rose from the hard-scrabble streets of Pittsburgh to become one of the most powerful players in the shoe business, founded BBC International in 1975, turning it into a multimillion-dollar global footwear powerhouse that produced some of the most coveted fashion and character shoes in the children’s category.
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“When I look back at the things that really set BBC on a path for success, lighted shoes is one of them,” he told FN in December 2019 when the publication honored him for Lifetime Achievement as part of the FN Achievement Awards. “That idea was my first really big break.”
Campbell is survived by his wife, Barbara Zangrilli, children Robert Campbell Jr., Dana Campbell and Seth Campbell, as well as five grandchildren.
The company directed people seeking to make a donation in Campbell’s name to the Two Ten Footwear Foundation.
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