Henry Holt Authored “Old School” Publications with Timeless Value

Henry Holt was an American publisher and writer who was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 3, 1840. He is an alumnus of Yale University. He attended Columbia Law School but dropped out of his Bachelor of Laws to marry Mary Florence West.

In 1862, Holt became an employee of Frederick Leypoldt’s publishing house. He acquired the company in 1873 and renamed it Henry Holt and Company. His company focused on publishing and did not retail books. He was active in Henry Holt and Company until 1916.

Two of his novels, Calire (1892) and Stumsee: Man and Man (1905) were anonymously published but were late republished under Holt’s name. In an issue of The New York Times, these novels were described as follows: “In Sturmsee the economic problems of the present day are treated in an interesting fashion. The theory of 'social service' is set forth in it, and there are many satirical touches. The scope of the other novel, Calmire, is somewhat broader."

William Hoover: Putting Vacuum Cleaners in the Mainstream

William Hoover was an American industrialist who was born in 1849. He worked as a tanner in a local leather store while he was a boy. He was involved in tannery business until the early twentieth century. Hoover’s first crack at business took place in 1908 when he acquired the patent rights of John Murray Spangler for the upright vacuum cleaner.

Eventually, Spangler’s invention became known as Hoover vacuum cleaner. Hoover, who was married to Spangler’s first cousin, became interested in the earlier models of the vacuum cleaner. Hoover invested in Spangler’s company and later became connected with the Electric Suction Sweeper Company as president.

Hoover changed the company’s name to Hoover Company in 1922. While at the helm of Hoover Company, he improved the design of the vacuum cleaners and developed new sales strategies. Hoover entered into dealership agreements with store owners. He awarded commissions to the dealers for each vacuum cleaner sold. Customers were offered ten days of free trial. Because of his innovative marketing strategies, Hoover Company became the world’s largest vacuum cleaner manufacturer.

In spite of his successes, Hoover kept on innovating and improving his precious commodity to make it more appealing to customers. One of his earlier innovations were the vacuum cleaners with replaceable bags, the self-propelled vacuums, and the steam cleaners.

Hoover looked to expand his business internationally. In 1911, he opened a manufacturing facility in Canada and in England in 1919. No wonder why in England, using the vacuum is also called “hoovering.”

Despite his death in 1932, Hoover Company continued to succeed. To help the US armed forces during the World War II, Hoover Company shifted from producing vacuum cleaners to war components such as bomb fuses and helmet liners.

William Hoover was a recipient of a number of awards for his contribution to the US government’s war efforts. After the World War II, Hoover Company went back to the production of its flagship products – vacuum cleaners.

Hoover Company held its IPO in the 1940s and in 1985, it was acquired by Chicago Pacific Corporation. Meanwhile, in 1989, Chicago Pacific Corporation was purchased by Maytag Corporation.

Herman Hollerith: Father of Modern Automatic Computation

Herman Hollerith was an American statistician who invented the mechanical tabulator that can rapidly tabulate millions of data derived from punch cards. Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company which later merged with another company that eventually became IBM. His contribution to the field of statistics earned him the honor as the Father of Modern Automatic Computation.

Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New York on February 29, 1860 to a German father. He earned his Engineer of Mines degree at Columbia University School of Mines in 1879. He also finished his Ph.D. in the same university. He was a professor in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he started experimenting with punch cards.

In his experiments, Hollerith developed a mechanism that used electrical connections as trigger for counting and recording information. The idea was to code all data numerically. Hollerith believed that when numbers are punched on specific locations with a card, then the information can be sorted and counted mechanically. Hollerith described the system in his doctoral thesis entitled “An Electrical Tabulating System.” Later, his invention was issued US Patent 395,782.

James Hill: Empire Builder

James Jerome Hill was an American executive who became the CEO of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), which serviced Upper Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and the northern Great Plains. GNR was just one of the many lines the Hill family owned. Hill was known throughout his lifetime as “The Empire Builder” because of the sizeable markets his companies have covered.

Hill was born in Wellington County, Upper Canada on September 16, 1838. He attended Rockwood Academy but was forced to quit schooling when his father died in 1852. At that time, Hill had a good grasp of English, geometry, algebra, and land surveying.

He learned bookkeeping while working in Kentucky as a clerk. He was 18 when he decided to permanently move to the US and settled in Minnesota. Hill worked as bookkeeper in a steamboat company in St. Paul, MN. In 1860, Hill took care of freight transfer while working with a wholesaler that dealt with steamboat and railroad operators. This job exposed Hill to the transportation and freight business.

Using his experience in fuel supply and shipping, Hill started to work for himself. He ventured into the steamboat business in 1873, which eventually grew to a monopoly in 1879. Hill started his coal business in 1867. By 1879, it expanded five times over. Thereafter, Hill entered the banking business by buying bankrupt banks, helped them recover, and resold them at a substantial profit.

Many railroads went bankrupt during the Panic of 1873. Hill saw the crisis as a pot of business opportunities. After three years of research, Hill partnered with Norman Kittson, John Stewart Kennedy, George Stephen, and Donald Smith, and acquired St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (StP&P). The group bargained with Northern Pacific Railway for trackage rights. The expansion was so wide that the venture resulted in the establishment of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway (StPM&M). Hill was its first general manager.

While sitting as the general manager of StPM&M, Hill moved the homes of his workers along the railways. He sold rice he has imported from Russia to farmers. To encourage farmers to buy his wheat, he also sold wood to them. He scouted potential tracks on horseback. From a net worth of $278,000 in 1880, StPM&M’s net worth grew to $25 million in 1885.

Dee Hock: Huge Name but Small Enough to Fit Your Wallet

Dee Ward Hock was an American banker who founded the Visa credit card association. Hock influenced the Bank of America to give up its ownership and control of its credit card licensing called BankAmericard. Thereafter, Hock formed a non-stock membership company called National BankAmerica, which eventually became Visa in 1976.

Hock left Visa in May 1984 to spend 10 retirement years in isolation in a 200-acre land just west of the Silicon Valley. In 1991, Hock was inducted into the US Business Hall of Fame by the Junior Achievement. The following year, Money magazine inducted Hock into its own Hall of Fame.

In his acceptance speech at the Business Hall of Fame, Hock said he recognized four “beasts:” ego, envy, avarice, and ambition. When he decided to resign from Visa and live in anonymity and isolation, he traded “money for time, position for liberty, and ego for contentment.” He was able to cage the beasts.

Pattillo Higgins: The Wisdom of an Unschooled Geologist

Pattillo Higgins was an American entrepreneur and self-taught geologist. His business endeavors in the oil industry helped many people earn a vast fortune. Because of his contributions, he was nicknamed “Prophet of Spindletop.” He was the co-founder of Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company and the founder of Higgins Standard Oil Company.

Higgins was born in Sabine Pass, Texas on December 5, 1863. After his fourth grade, he worked as an apprentice in his father’s gun shop. This exposed him to violence and often harassed African Americans. When he was 17, his left arm was amputated from the elbow down after he was engaged in a firefight with a deputy after he pulled a prank on a local Baptist Church. He became a Christian in 1885 after he attended a Baptist revival service. Thereafter, he left his work as a logger because he realized that it was not a good job to maintain morality. He left for Beaumont, Texas where he started his own business.

Using his savings as a logger, Higgins established the Higgins Manufacturing Company and with it manufactured bricks. His interest in gas and oil business was kindled because of his requirements for kiln to even the burning of bricks. He traveled to Pennsylvania to study fuels and how to identify areas with underground oil deposits. He read reports from the US Geological Survey and other materials. He remembered what his Sunday school teacher taught him about the “Sour Hill Mound.” It was called sour because of the presence of sulfur under it. Convinced that the Sour Hill Mound indicated the presence of oil beneath, Higgins partnered with J.F. Lanier, Emma John, George Carroll, and George O’Brien, and formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company in 1892.

At that time, professional geologists dismissed the notion that there is oil beneath the gulf coasts of the US. But Higgins’s self study of geology convinced him that there is oil beneath because of gas seepage and the presence of mineral water. Gladys City Oil decided to pursue the drilling. He attempted three times but the shifting sands and unstable clay underneath contributed to his failure. Later, he resigned from the company.

Higgins was unwilling to give up his hopes of hitting an oil well. He placed advertisements in the newspapers hoping to spark interest in others. A man named Anthony Francis Lucas responded. In June 1900, they started drilling but Lucas’ light equipment collapsed upon reaching 575 feet. In October 1900, drilling continued with the help of Corsicana’s Al and Curt Hamill.

The new project used newer, heavier, and more efficient rotary bit. On January 10, 1901, at 150 feet beneath the ground, 100,000 barrels of oil per day flowed from the geyser. And it was at the same spot that Higgins earlier predicted. In the first year of operations, the Spindletop oilfield turned in more than three million barrels of oil and more than 17 million barrels the following year.

William Hewlett: The Other Half of the Great Hewlett-Packard Company

William “Bill” Hewlett was an American engineer who co-founded the computer giant Hewlett Packard Company (HP) along with David Packard. Hewlett was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on May 20, 1913. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering at Stanford University and took his Masters in Electrical Engineering at MIT.

Hewlett and Packard became acquainted with each other at Stanford. The idea of establishing a company happened in August 1937. On January 1, 1939, Hewlett and Packard formed a partnership which became the HP. The company was incorporated in 1947 and held its IPO in 1957. HP is known worldwide for its corporate culture embodied in what is called The HP Way. The HP Way says the company exists not only for money but for mutual respect and nurture of its employees.

Hewlett served HP as President from 1964 until 1977. He was CEO from 1968 until 1978 and chairman of the executive committee from 1978 until 1983. He also served as chairman of the board until 1987.

On January 12, 2001, Hewlett died of heart failure. He was buried in San Jose, California.

The Success-driven Career of Massachusetts Building Executive Kevin Craffey

As CEO and owner of Craffey & Co., Builders Inc., since 1995, Kevin Craffey heads a Plymouth, Massachusetts contracting firm that has completed diverse retail and commercial projects spanning the country. He directs the efforts of approximately 150 employees in undertaking additions and renovations of high-profile mall tenants and big box retailers. Mr. Craffey also leads the regionally focused KJ Realty Trust Corporation / Court Street Trust, which had pursued office, commercial, and residential development projects in communities such as Avon and Hanover. Among his additional ventures is K & J Interiors, Inc., which has provided highest quality carpentry sub-contracting services since the late 1980s.

Kevin Craffey’s entrepreneurial background includes six years engaged with Mountain View Development as owner and president. Beginning in the late 1990s, he led an enterprise that undertook a major hotel restoration project in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Leading a team of 300 employees, he restored a renowned 200-room grand hotel. The project required the coordinated financing support from than a dozen federal and state agencies. Within a period of two years, he had successfully brought the property to preeminent four-diamond and AAA four-diamond status. Kevin Craffey additionally collaborated with the Whitefield school system in the development of Mountain View Academy, a pioneering public-private hospitality internship program. His leadership in the project ended with the successful sale of Mountain View Development to the Great American Corporation in 2005.

Mr. Craffey holds a degree in Business administration earned at Massasoit Community College. He undertook a four-year apprenticeship through the Massachusetts Carpenters Training Center in  Allston and ultimately earned his Carpentry Journeyman Certificate through the Associated General Contractors of America.

Leona Helmsley: Queen of Mean

Leona Helmsley was an American entrepreneur who possesses a flamboyant personality. She earned the nickname “Queen of Mean” because of her tyrannical behavior.

Helmsley faced charges of income tax evasion and was convicted of the crime after the contractors who worked in her home alleged that she failed to pay the bills. She was also convicted on other crimes. During her trial, Helmsley’s former housekeeper said she heard Helmsley saying, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” This saying was notoriously identified with her until her death. She was sentenced with 16 years in prison but served only 19 months in federal prison and two months in hospital arrest.
Helmsley was born as Lena Mindy Rosenthal. She was an Abraham Lincoln High School dropout. She changed her name a number of times – Lee Roberts, Mindy Roberts, and Leni Roberts. Finally, she adopted Leona Mindy Roberts as her legal name.

In 1964, Helmsley started her career as a real estate person after Abe Hirschfield hired her to sell co-ops in New York. Later, she worked as a condominium broker when she met Harry Helmsley, who was a millionaire real estate magnate. Harry Helmsley eventually became her husband. Helmsley spent most of her time managing her husband’s hotel empire.

Reports indicated that it was Helmsley who influenced her husband to convert their apartment buildings into condominium units. Leona focused on the conversion while Harry concentrated on their hotel business. The Helmsleys were known as great realtors in New York following the construction of The Hemsley Palace off Madison Avenue. They were thought to build a real estate empire in New York because of huge projects which include 230 Park Avenue, the Tudor City apartment complex, the Helmsley-Spear, and the Empire State Building.

An ad featured Leona Helmsley where she was portrayed as a demanding queen who wanted the best for all her guests. She earned the reputation to fire her employees because of the slightest mistakes, hurl insults and obscenities at them before they were finally terminated.

Leona Helmsley was 87 years old when she died on August 20, 2007 because of a congestive heart failure.