Haworth, Inc - Gerrard Wendell Haworth
by Dr. Janet Huchingson
Gerrard “G. W.” Wendell Haworth
G.W. Haworth (1911-2006) of Holland, Michigan, was the
founder of one of the largest office furnishings companies in the world. He is a
descendant of George Haworth the Immigrant through George’s son, James.
Gerrard Wendell Haworth
Elmer Cecil “Rex” Haworth
and
m. Clara Luella “Lulu” Jones
Moorman Clark Haworth and Clara Jane McConnell
Calvin Haworth and Rachael Haworth
Moorman Haworth
and
Elizabeth Murdock
John B. Haworth and
Elizabeth Ballard
George Haworth and
Susannah Dillon
James Haworth and
Sarah Wood
George the Immigrant and
Sarah
Scarborough
G.W. was born on Oct. 9,
1911, 17 miles west of Allliance, Nebraska,
to
“Rex” Haworth (pronounced Hay-worth by the family) and wife Clara “Lulu” Jones.
Both parents were from Ackworth, Iowa. When Rex was twenty-one, he was of legal
age to qualify for homestead land through the Kincaid Act. He built a soddie,
using poles for the roof that he had cut on his grandfather’s farm in Ackworth
and shipped to Alliance. In 1907, the name Rex Haworth appears on the list of
attendees at the Haworth Family Reunion, as does that of his mother. In 1910
Lulu, arrived in Alliance by train. They were married that day then rode in
their buggy to the homestead. Their first child was G.W., and he was followed by
three daughters. The family moved from Nebraska to Cheyenne Co. Colorado, where
records in 1918 and 1920 indicate that Rex farmed. Then in 1926 the family moved
to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where city directories and census records show Rex
was a salesman and an auto-mechanic. The census for 1940 has not been found yet.
Rex died in 1981, at the age of 96. He and his wife are buried in Crystal
Springs Cemetery in Benton Township, Michigan.
G.W. attended high school
high school in Benton Harbor and graduated from Western Michigan University. He
took a job teaching industrial arts in Holland, Michigan, a position he held for
eleven years. He married Dorcas Athelia Snyder, a young teacher in the Zeeland
public schools.
He received a masters in educational
administration from the University of Michigan in 1940, but his dream was to
have his own business, so in 1948, after banks would not lend him the money, he
borrowed $10,000 of his parents’ life savings to expand a woodworking business
he had started in his garage. He hoped to earn enough money to put his children
– Joan, Julie, Lois, Mary, and Richard - through college. According to his
daughter, Julie, “when he started his [own] business, he worked out of our
garage, which was basically a ‘job shop’, which simply meant that he made
anything anyone needed. An early job was to make moveable walls for an office
area. That looked like a good idea to Dad, so he started down the road toward
building office partitions and [then] furniture.”
This job may be the one
referred to on the Haworth.com website:
“1954 – A stranger strides into G.W.’s office,
drops a set of drawings on his desk and asks, ‘Can you build these?’ The plans
detail an innovative office partition system designed for the United Auto
Workers headquarters in Detroit. G.W. agrees, wins the business, and the huge
order catapults his company forward in both partitions and moveable wall
products. He thinks, ‘I could build a business around this type of product’ and
does.” The first business was named Modern Products. It was later changed to
Haworth, Inc.
In 1976, G. W. remained
active in the company
but turned the operation of the business over
to his son Richard, who introduced a complete line of office workplace products.
After the death of his wife, he remarried in 1978 to Edna “Eddie” Dyke. By the
late 1980s the company expanded its marketing through North America, Europe and
Asia, in part by acquiring 25 foreign companies. Haworth Inc. reached $1 billion
in annual revenue by 1994 and doubled that by 2000. That year the company bought
some architectural interior companies, so it could go beyond furniture to
complete interiors. Three years later Haworth purchased two other businesses,
which further strengthened the company’s production of office and workplace
solutions. The company’s size grew by 400%.
G.W. retired completely in
2005. He died in 2006 at the age of 95 and is buried in Pilgrim Home Cemetery in
Holland, Michigan. Before his death he received the Western Michigan University
Distinguished Alumni Award, an honorary doctorate from Kendall College of Art &
Design in Grand Rapids, the Entrepreneur of the year by the University of
Michigan Business School, and was named Michigan Manufacturer of the year by the
Michigan Manufacturers” Association. He and his son Richard were awarded Doctors
of Human Letters
by Hope College in 2013.
Over
the years, G.W., the company, and his family have been contributors to:
a scholarship fund for Haworth Inc. employees
and families, the Western Michigan University’s school of business for new
facilities, the Haworth Inn and Conference Center at Hope College in Holland,
Western Theological Seminary, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holland, and
many other worthy causes.
Haworth Inc. is headed today
by G.W.’s grandson, Matthew. It has 7,000 employees, 20 factories, a network of
600 dealers in 120 countries.
Contents of this biography
came from Julia Falconer (daughter), Paul DeWitt (nephew), the Haworth, Inc.
website, Wikipedia, Hope College, U.S. census
records and city directories. The following links provide further information,
photos, videos, and obituaries.
- this is part of a speech by G. W. Haworh
http://www.hope.edu/2013/04/29/hope-award-honorary-degrees-gw-haworth-and-richard-haworth
- describes the award to father and son and
includes a photo of each
http://www.lifestorynet.com/memories/17166
- an obituary website that includes a life story film
https://www.facebook.com/haworthinc?fref=photo
- the company’s Facebook page
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/archives/
- enter Gerrard Wendell Haworth in the archive search