Harry K. Wells, former chairman of the board and CEO of McCormick & Co. and a World War II veteran, died Saturday of respiratory failure at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson. He was 94.

The son of Clifton Kennedy Wells, a homebuilder, and Ruth Jones, Harry Kennedy Wells was born in Baltimore and raised in Homeland.

A Polytechnic Institute graduate, he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1943 in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.

He enlisted in the Navy in 1943, and served as an engineer aboard a ship and later was promoted to head a troop transport in the Pacific. He was discharged with the rank of lieutenant in 1946.

Mr. Wells’ McCormick & Co. career began in 1941 as a summer management trainee at its old headquarters and manufacturing facility on Light Street at the Inner Harbor.

After the war, he returned to the spice maker in 1946 and was appointed assistant plant superintendent. Four years later, he was promoted to plant superintendent.

In 1956, Mr. Wells was named plant manager of the company’s Schilling Division in San Francisco, and in 1964 became its assistant general manager.

Elected a director of McCormick & Co. in 1965, he was promoted to vice president and general manager of the Schilling Division the next year.

In 1968, Mr. Wells was named a vice president at McCormick, and the next year, president of the company. He added the title of CEO in 1970.

He served as chairman of the board and CEO of the Hunt Valley company from 1977 to 1988, when he retired.

He also had been chairman or director of subsidiaries in Mexico, Australia, London, and Gilroy, Calif.

Some of Mr. Wells’ directorships included Maryland Properties Inc. in Hunt Valley, Maryland National Bank, Loyola Federal Savings & Loan, the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Baltimore, Greater Baltimore Committee, Maryland Casualty Co., and United Way of Central Maryland.

He also had been a director of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., Loyola Capital Corp., PHH Group Inc. and Fidelity & Deposit of Maryland.

The former longtime resident of Gateshead Road in Towson and Riderwood Station had been living at Blakehurst since 2007.

He enjoyed golf, sailing, reading and spending time at a second home in Stone Harbor, N.J. He was a member of the Maryland Club and the Baltimore Country Club.

His wife of 62 years, the former Lois Luttrell, died in 2008.

Mr. Wells was a member of Hunt’s Memorial United Methodist Church, 1912 Old Court Road, Riderwood, where a memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

He is survived by two sons, David Kennedy Wells of Timonium and Robert Grayson Wells of Melbourne, Fla.; a daughter, Katherine Wells Witbeck of Lancaster, Pa.; and seven grandchildren.

frasmussen@baltsun.com