Aaron Furtens
Páginas: 33 (8107 palabras)
Publicado: 20 de julio de 2011
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Aaron Feuerstein
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H A P T E R
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Aaron Feuerstein
CEO and Owner of Malden Mills
“Did you ever read the book of Job?”
T
he night of December 11, 1995, began happily enough for Aaron Feuerstein, chief executive officer (CEO) and owner of Malden Mills—one ofMassachusetts’s largest, oldest, and most innovative textile makers. The occasion was a surprise party for his seventieth birthday. The place: Café Budapest, one of his favorite restaurants (and one of Boston’s best). Family, friends, and coworkers had gathered there to fete Feuerstein amid toasts and laughter, for there was much to celebrate. The company had flourished for better than a decade, thankslargely to a single product—Polartec (originally, Polarfleece)—a soft, fuzzy, fleecelike synthetic fabric patented by Malden engineers in the late 1970s and first sold to customers in 1981. For Feuerstein, this fleece literally had been golden. Its attributes—warmth, light weight, moisture-absorbency—made it ideal for outdoor garments worn by everyone from professional athletes and mountain climbers tojoggers and weekend gardeners. Tens of pages of every L.L. Bean and Lands’ End catalog (to name but two of Malden’s customers) were devoted regularly to touting Polartec-based coats and jackets, gloves, hats, vests, booties—even bathrobes and pajamas. Not only was the fabric warm and snuggly—it also was politically correct. Made mainly from recycled plastic soda bottles (80 percent), it could beworn with pride by environmentalists. Here was the quintessential feel-good product. By promoting it aggressively, Malden Mills had created a $3-billion retail market. Sales hit $400 million the year Feuerstein hit 70.
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FORBES GREAT SUCCESS STORIES
The company’s situation was unique within the textile industry, its hold on lifegrowing stronger at the time other mills were losing theirs. Traditional mills, not having a proprietary product comparable to Polartec, had been forced to compete principally on price. And on that basis, New England’s mills, since the 1950s, had been losing out to mills with lower operating costs—ones situated in southern states, Mexico or Asia. More than a few of Malden’s peers had declaredbankruptcy, closed, or pulled up stakes and moved. Result: There were no “Café Budapests” in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Malden Mills’ home town. The section of Lawrence where Feuerstein’s century-old redbrick mill buildings were located was considered by locals to be among the city’s toughest—a wasteland of shuttered shops and broken windows. Malden’s Victorian-looking complex ran through three blocksof it, along the Lawrence–Methuen border. Life for working men and women in Lawrence had never been exactly easy (the city was the scene for 1912’s “Bread and Roses” strike by 25,000 workers), but at least the city had once bustled with commercial activity. Now, it ranked twenty-fourth among the poorest cities in the United States, no longer famous for manufacturing but for being a crack-cocainecapital and a magnet for newly arrived immigrants. Though only 30 miles north of Boston, it might as well have been in the third world. Malden Mills’ workforce comprised 52 different nationalities—among the most diverse in the textile industry. Yet Feuerstein had steadfastly refused to move, in part because he didn’t have to (Malden’s margins, thanks to Polartec, were so robust he didn’t need toshop for cheaper labor); in part because he felt a civic obligation, as Lawrence’s largest employer, to remain; and in part because he was—well—at the age of 70, a stubborn old man. Not that he looked or acted old. Snapshots from the night of his party show him spry and straight-backed, vigorous, his blue eyes alive with humor. Since childhood, he had been physically unable to sit still. The weight...
8/11/00 6:36 PM
Page 2
Aaron Feuerstein
7311_Farnham_01_jf.qxd
8/11/00 6:36 PM
Page 3
C
H A P T E R
1
Aaron Feuerstein
CEO and Owner of Malden Mills
“Did you ever read the book of Job?”
T
he night of December 11, 1995, began happily enough for Aaron Feuerstein, chief executive officer (CEO) and owner of Malden Mills—one ofMassachusetts’s largest, oldest, and most innovative textile makers. The occasion was a surprise party for his seventieth birthday. The place: Café Budapest, one of his favorite restaurants (and one of Boston’s best). Family, friends, and coworkers had gathered there to fete Feuerstein amid toasts and laughter, for there was much to celebrate. The company had flourished for better than a decade, thankslargely to a single product—Polartec (originally, Polarfleece)—a soft, fuzzy, fleecelike synthetic fabric patented by Malden engineers in the late 1970s and first sold to customers in 1981. For Feuerstein, this fleece literally had been golden. Its attributes—warmth, light weight, moisture-absorbency—made it ideal for outdoor garments worn by everyone from professional athletes and mountain climbers tojoggers and weekend gardeners. Tens of pages of every L.L. Bean and Lands’ End catalog (to name but two of Malden’s customers) were devoted regularly to touting Polartec-based coats and jackets, gloves, hats, vests, booties—even bathrobes and pajamas. Not only was the fabric warm and snuggly—it also was politically correct. Made mainly from recycled plastic soda bottles (80 percent), it could beworn with pride by environmentalists. Here was the quintessential feel-good product. By promoting it aggressively, Malden Mills had created a $3-billion retail market. Sales hit $400 million the year Feuerstein hit 70.
3
7311_Farnham_01_jf.qxd
8/11/00 6:37 PM
Page 4
4
FORBES GREAT SUCCESS STORIES
The company’s situation was unique within the textile industry, its hold on lifegrowing stronger at the time other mills were losing theirs. Traditional mills, not having a proprietary product comparable to Polartec, had been forced to compete principally on price. And on that basis, New England’s mills, since the 1950s, had been losing out to mills with lower operating costs—ones situated in southern states, Mexico or Asia. More than a few of Malden’s peers had declaredbankruptcy, closed, or pulled up stakes and moved. Result: There were no “Café Budapests” in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Malden Mills’ home town. The section of Lawrence where Feuerstein’s century-old redbrick mill buildings were located was considered by locals to be among the city’s toughest—a wasteland of shuttered shops and broken windows. Malden’s Victorian-looking complex ran through three blocksof it, along the Lawrence–Methuen border. Life for working men and women in Lawrence had never been exactly easy (the city was the scene for 1912’s “Bread and Roses” strike by 25,000 workers), but at least the city had once bustled with commercial activity. Now, it ranked twenty-fourth among the poorest cities in the United States, no longer famous for manufacturing but for being a crack-cocainecapital and a magnet for newly arrived immigrants. Though only 30 miles north of Boston, it might as well have been in the third world. Malden Mills’ workforce comprised 52 different nationalities—among the most diverse in the textile industry. Yet Feuerstein had steadfastly refused to move, in part because he didn’t have to (Malden’s margins, thanks to Polartec, were so robust he didn’t need toshop for cheaper labor); in part because he felt a civic obligation, as Lawrence’s largest employer, to remain; and in part because he was—well—at the age of 70, a stubborn old man. Not that he looked or acted old. Snapshots from the night of his party show him spry and straight-backed, vigorous, his blue eyes alive with humor. Since childhood, he had been physically unable to sit still. The weight...
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