Worcester’s Frank Carroll, business leader and veterans advocate, dies

Francis “Frank” R. Carroll, a Worcester native and philanthropist who supported the city’s businesses, has died.

Worcester City Manager Eric Batista announced Carroll’s death on Wednesday night and wrote Carroll was a “champion for small business.”

“Frank came from humble beginnings & spent his life working to make Worcester a better place to live,” Batista wrote. “We are grateful for the gifts he left behind.”

Born in Worcester’s Vernon Hill neighborhood, Carroll founded the Small Business Service Bureau in Worcester in 1968 to provide benefits to small businesses and advocate at the state and national level to reduce the cost of health insurance. He was also involved in the development of Federal Square, purchasing the Dexter, Academy and Vuona buildings on Main Street and investing in facade renovations.

Carroll has also been involved in efforts to raise money for the St. John’s Food for the Poor Program to build the St. Francis Xavier Center, a soup kitchen and food pantry, and building a Living Memorial Hospital in Vietnam in honor of men from Central Massachusetts killed or missing in action in Vietnam. The hospital, built in 1967, is still open today.

“We are so lucky to have honored him with the Frank Carroll Plaza in front of the Hanover while he was able to enjoy the securing of his legacy,” Mayor Joseph Petty wrote in a statement on Thursday. “Worcester is a better place because of the work he did and he will be truly missed.”

Carroll was 89 years old, according to a spokesperson for Petty.

Carroll was also an early supporter and founding member of the team that renovated the Hanover Theatre. In 2008, a plaza in front of the Hanover Theatre was dedicated to him. In 2023, the plaza was redesigned to include a towering art installation and the Bank of America Stage for performances.

“As an entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist, Frank was a natural founding member and board member of The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory,” the Theatre wrote on its Facebook page. “His unwavering support and dedication to Worcester and THT helped shape our organization into what it is today.”