Wigand Jeffrey

American hero, a man who emerged from the button-down corporate world as a socially conscious protagonist in a story so dramatic that it became a winning motion picture, "The Insider," in which Russell Crowe played the role of Jeffrey Wigand. A biochemist, Dr. Wigand achieved national prominence in 1995 when he became the highest-ranking former executive to reveal company protocol about the effect of smoking on public health. In a ferocious battle with the big-money powers of the Tobacco industry, Dr. Wigand made every attempt to get around a signed confidentiality agreement with the industry that he would not divulge anything that he had learned while in tobacco employment, until he was subpoenaed by the Grand Jury to divulge the dirty little secret that insider information knew for years: cigarettes kill people. Every year, 425,000 Americans die of smoking-related illnesses. Wigand had evidence that the tobacco industry knew that tobacco was addictive, in spite of the fact that they stated otherwise in front of Congress, and that they added carcinogenic substances to enhance the impact, considering cigarettes a "nicotine delivery device." An average-looking man with a somewhat rounded face and body, Wigand describes himself as a "plodder." He wears silver-rimmed aviator glasses, which he takes off frequently to rub his eyes. He has coarse silver hair, a small nose, and fighters thick neck from his days as a black belt in judo. According to Wigands brother James, a Richmond Virginia, endocrinologist, "If they think they can intimidate and threaten him, they have picked on the wrong person!" A workaholic with a stubborn depth of character, his pride at being a corporate executive making $300,000 a year turned into rage against a level of corruption which he found intolerable. The son of a mechanical engineer, a dad who stressed independence, Jeffrey Wigand grew up in a strict Catholic home in the Bronx, the oldest of five children. Both parents were severe and he recalls that his mom raised them by the book and not the heart. As a kid, he had to control his anger when he felt that he was tolerated rather than understood and as a teenager, his rebellion accumulated. A gifted student, he flourished in the quiet atmosphere of science labs and planned to study medicine, until he exploded at home and announced that he was dropping out of college to join the air force. In 1961, Wigand was posted to Misawa, an American base in Japan where he worked in the base hospital O.R. He learned Japanese and, a jogger at college, became acquainted with martial arts. Back in the States, he continued his education at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, earning his doctorate with distinction. He began work at a health-care company. Wigand met Linda, a legal secretary, in 1970 at a judo class. They married the following year and seven months later, Linda developed multiple sclerosis. Wigand took a job testing medical equipment in Japan. He was fluent in the language and in a top position. Though Linda was disintegrating physically, she wanted their child, daughter Gretchen in 1973. Wigand searched the world for specialists, but he emotionally withdrew from his wife and baby as a form of self-protection. When they returned to the States, they separated. He met his second wife, Lucretia, in 1981 at a sales conference at Ortho Diagnostic Systems, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, where he was a director of mark Read less