PASSINGS

Thomas P. Nickell Jr.

Former USC executive

Thomas P. Nickell Jr., 88, a former vice president at USC who directed fundraising, public affairs and press relations at the university for more than three decades, died May 25 in San Diego, the university announced.

During his tenure and under his direction, alumni volunteers and friends of the university garnered more than $500 million in private support for USC. He was also a driving force in establishing in 1959 the university’s premier academic support group, the USC Associates.

A native of Richmond, Ind., Nickell spent two years at Butler University in Indiana before enlisting in the Army Air Forces during World War II. After the war, he continued his education at USC and earned his bachelor of science in marketing and advertising.

He returned to his alma mater in 1950 to direct the university’s annual giving program. He was named director of fundraising and development in 1957, director of university planning in 1960 and vice president for university planning in 1961.

He left USC in 1981 to operate the Nickell Co., a development consulting firm.

Roy Boe

Owner of Nets, Islanders in ‘70s

Roy Boe, 79, who owned both the Julius Erving-led New York Nets of the American Basketball Assn. and the fledgling New York Islanders of the National Hockey League in the 1970s, died Sunday of heart failure at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Conn.

Boe purchased the Nets in May 1969 and the team made the ABA finals in 1972, losing to Indiana. The team obtained Erving for the 1973-74 season and “The Doctor” immediately led the team to titles in 1974 and ’76.

Boe and the Nets joined the NBA for the 1976-77 season but had to pay $8 million in various fees.

Strapped for cash, Boe sold the rights to Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers for $3 million in 1976. The Nets moved to New Jersey in 1977, and Boe sold his interest in 1978.

He became the original owner of the expansion Islanders in 1972. He also sold his interest in that team in 1978.

Boe was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Sept. 14, 1929. He graduated from Yale and served in the Army during the Korean War.

James F. Calvert

Retired Navy vice admiral

James F. Calvert, 88, a retired Navy vice admiral who commanded the nuclear-powered submarine Skate, the first vessel to surface at the North Pole, died of a heart ailment June 3 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

The 1959 polar trip was made to test how well a submarine could operate in the Arctic Ocean. Calvert wrote about the mission in the 1960 book “Surface at the Pole.”

Calvert later served as superintendent of the Naval Academy from 1968 to 1972. In that capacity, he implemented the academic majors program that broadened the Annapolis, Md., academy’s curriculum beyond engineering to include more than 20 other majors, including political science. He also expanded the school’s civilian faculty.

After serving at the academy, he became commander of the First Fleet in the Pacific. He retired from the military in 1973.

He was born in Cleveland on Sept. 8, 1920. He attended Oberlin College for two years before receiving an appointment to Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1942. He immediately went to submarine school and served on the Jack, credited with sinking 15 enemy ships during World War II.

He later became executive officer of the submarine Haddo and was present in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered, ending the war.

Eilene M. Galloway

Space law expert suggested NASA

Eilene M. Galloway, 102, a retired Library of Congress expert on space law and policy who helped shape legislation creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, died May 2 of cancer at her home in Washington, D.C.

Her involvement with space issues began Oct. 4, 1957, the day the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. Lyndon B. Johnson, then a Democratic senator from Texas and chairman of the Preparedness Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Galloway to serve as staff consultant for hearings on space technology and its military implications.

She advised House Majority Leader John W. McCormack (D-Mass.) to establish a space committee. He became chairman of the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, which recommended creating a national space agency. Galloway suggested that the proposed agency be an administration, thereby giving NASA the ability to plan and coordinate across federal agencies.

Eilene Marie Slack was born May 4, 1906, in Kansas City, Mo. She was a 1928 political science graduate of Swarthmore College and found a series of government jobs after moving to Washington in 1931.

In 1941, she joined the Legislative Reference Service (which became the Congressional Research Service) as editor of postwar abstracts on international relations and national security. She later was named a national defense analyst. Named a senior specialist in 1966, she retired in 1975 but continued as a Library of Congress consultant until 2006.

*

Boris Pokrovsky, 97, a noted Russian opera director who staged many of the Bolshoi Theatre’s biggest productions during the Soviet era, died Friday in Moscow, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse.

-- times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com