School Specialty Inc. has announced that its chairman and chief executive officer Daniel Spalding has died unexpectedly.

He died of a heart attack Friday morning in a hotel room in Durango, Colo., where he was staying for business reasons, said chief financial officer Mary Kabacinski, according to a report by Bloomberg News. No details were released by the company.

The board of the Greenville-based direct marketer of school supplies named Leo McKenna as interim chairman and David Vander Zanden as interim CEO. Vander Zanden is the president and chief operating officer of School Specialty and has run day-to-day operations of the company for the past four years, the company said.

Spalding, 47, had served as chairman of the board and CEO of School Specialty since February 1998.

From 1988 to 1996, he was president, CEO and a director of School Specialty. When the company was acquired by U.S. Office Products in July 1996, Spalding became president of the Educational Supplies and Products Division of U.S. Office Products.

School Specialty was spun off from U.S. Office Products as a public company in 1998.

Prior to 1988, Spalding was an officer of JanSport Inc., a manufacturer of sports apparel and backpacking equipment. He was a co-founder of JanSport and served as president and CEO from 1977 to 1984.