Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
Imagine operating a manufacturing company with no core product, no bosses, and a democratically-elected CEO. How long do you think it would survive? For nearly 60 years, the W.L. Gore company has been best known for its Gore-Tex fabric, but its diverse portfolio includes everything from vacuum filters, microwave cable assemblies, guitar strings, dental floss, acoustic vents for cellphones, and even medical devices to treat heart defects. If it were publicly traded, this $3 billion Delaware-based private company would appear at No. 712 on the Fortune 1,000 list. But Gore-Tex is not the only thing this company is known for—it’s also famous for an incredibly strong corporate culture.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
If you’ve ever gone on a family picnic, packed a boat for a day of fishing, or brought drinks to keep the soccer team hydrated, there’s a good chance an Igloo® ice chest was involved. Igloo chests, along with the iconic red and white coolers, are just two of more than 550 products made by the 70-year old Igloo Products Corporation in Katy, Texas, just west of Houston.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
While Stonyfield is best known for making yogurt, yogurt wasn’t the way the founders of Stonyfield thought they’d change the world. In 1983, co-founders Samuel Kaymen and Gary Hirshberg were trying to help family farms survive, protect the environment, and keep food healthy through their nonprofit organic farming school.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
Not many American companies today can trace their history back for 92 years, or link to inventor Thomas Edison. But, Masonite, a publicly-traded company (NYSE: DOOR) can trace its roots back to Laurel, Mississippi, and its founder William H. Mason, an apprentice of Thomas Edison.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
Open a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Liquid Soap, and you’ll be taking part of a story that dates back over 150 years. It’s a story that began with a family of soapmakers in the Jewish community of Heilbronn, Germany. The story includes the holocaust, an escape from a Chicago mental institution, an attempted crucifixion on a bridge in 1945, Woodstock, and, well, it’s a complex epic that has passed through five generations of the Bronner family.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
For over 100 years, Hyde Park, Massachusetts, played a role in America’s thriving manufacturing economy. Today, many behemoth industrial buildings like the 50,000 sq. ft. Westinghouse Sturtevant headquarters have been converted into trendy loft homes for urbane Bostonians.
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