As the longtime chairman and CEO of the Chicago-based energy firm Exelon, John W. Rowe was a highly visible figure in Chicago’s often-overlapping business and civic communities in the early 2000s, steering Exelon through several mergers and chairing the boards of several high-profile institutions, including the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, the Chicago History Museum, the Field Museum and the Illinois Institute of Technology. “He had so much compassion and sincerity, and the only things that matched that were his honesty and his leadership capability,” said Chicago industrialist Lester Crown, the chairman emeritus of Henry Crown & Co. “I...