John J. Mullen, an environmental activist and founding partner of Mullen & McCaffrey Communications, died of a heart attack on Friday at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. He was 73.
A resident of East Hampton for many years, Mr. Mullen's involvement with environmental issues began in the 1970s and continued throughout his life. A founder of Suffolk for Safe Energy, New York State Against Jamesport, and Citizens to Settle Shoreham, he was an important figure in the closing of the Jamesport and Shoreham nuclear power plants. He served pro bono as communications director and fund-raiser for those organizations and many others.
Mr. Mullen was a charter member of the Group for the East End, a consultant to the New York State Democratic Committee, and he helped pioneer public education strategies for recycling programs in the state, including all the East End towns.
In addition, Mullen & McCaffrey, which he founded with his wife, Mary Ann McCaffrey, in 1984, has represented such clients as the Nature Conservancy, the Group for the South Fork, and the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, among many other nonprofits, as well as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Mr. Mullen was born on June 19, 1947, in Rockville Centre to John Mullen and Alice Haggerty Mullen. He grew up in Garden City but spent every summer until 1972 in East Hampton, where he was a camper and a counselor at the former Camp St. Regis in Northwest Woods. In 1972 he bought a house on the Circle in East Hampton Village that his parents had rented for many years. "He truly loved East Hampton," said Ms. McCaffrey, who survives.
During the 1970s, he worked as the office manager of Dan's Papers, advertising director of The Long Island Traveler-Watchman, and general manager of The Southampton Press. His father had served on the board of Newsday since its founding in the 1940s, "so newspapers were in his blood," his wife said.
Though Mr. Mullen and Ms. McCaffrey were married at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Hampton on Oct. 14, 1989, they had lived together since 1980, the same year he left The Southampton Press and moved to New York to work at Ogilvy & Mather. While there he was a creative executive in the advertising firm's direct response division, where he developed important campaigns for American Express and the American Red Cross.
The couple returned to East Hampton in 1984 to found Mullen & McCaffrey, whose services include public relations, crisis management, marketing, advertising, direct mail, and fund-raising. The firm has created and produced television and radio spots and other campaigns featuring Kathleen Turner, Alec Baldwin, Billy Joel, Dick Cavett, George Plimpton, and other celebrities.
Mr. Mullen taught public relations, marketing, and advertising in the humanities department at Long Island University. He and Ms. McCaffrey were founding members of Full Circle Farm in Bridgehampton, the East End's first organic community farm, which eventually moved to Amagansett and became Quail Hill Farm.
In addition to his wife, two sisters, Sarah Bergin of Bluffton, S.C., and Mary Etheredge of Woodland Hills, Calif., survive, as do 11 nieces and nephews and many friends "whose lives he touched with his warmth, humor, and good works," Ms. McCaffrey said.
His ashes will be scattered at sea, and a memorial will be planned for the spring or summer of 2021.
