Charles Elmer Hires was an American businessman and philanthropist. He served as a president of the Charles E. Hires Company.
Background
Charles Elmer Hires was was born on April 27, 1891 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was one of five children of Charles Elmer Hires Sr. , and Clara Smith. The Hireses were a well-to-do Republican Quaker family. Charles E. Hires Sr. had developed a popular carbonated beverage as a retail druggist in 1876; The Charles E. Hires Company was incorporated in 1890 and in 1900 the main production plant opened in Malvern, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Hires Root Beer proved to be one of the most popular fountain soft drinks in the world and the company grew into a giant. It soon expanded into banking and the production of condensed milk.
Education
Hires graduated from Haverford Preparatory School in 1909 and then attended Haverford College near Philadelphia, graduating with honors in June 1913.
Career
During summer 1913, Hires went to work for his father's firm as a junior executive. In 1920, Hires became president of the Charles E. Hires Company; his father became chairman of the board. When his father retired in 1924, Charles Junior took on the chairmanship as well. At his father's death in 1937, Hires became not only the undisputed corporate leader of the company but also the family patriarch.
After World War II, under Hires's direction, the company opened plants in Boston, New Haven, Washington, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia. In 1950, Hires retired as president, remaining as chairman and later a member of the board of directors until 1960. The company expanded into the sugar industry, owning and operating the Hires Sugar Company's 25, 000-acre plantation in Cardenas, Cuba, until it was sold in 1959, shortly after Fidel Castro's takeover of the Caribbean island nation.
In late 1960, Hires sold controlling interests in the parent company to Consolidated Foods, and retired. After retirement he became a full-time philanthropist. During his last twenty years Hires gave much of his time and fortune to Haverford College. He frequently visited the campus to talk with students and faculty members. In the 1930s he had served on the board of directors of Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia and was a director of the First National Bank of Philadelphia from 1941 to 1951. He was a charter member of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and an active member of the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. Hires maintained very close family ties throughout his life, and in his later years was a loving grandfather and great-grandfather. He died in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Although none of his sons was active in the company, the Hires heritage continued. The rights to the famous Hires Root Beer, the oldest continuously marketed soft drink in the United States, were owned from 1980 to 1989 by Procter and Gamble, which sold them to Cadbury Beverages, Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut, in 1989.
Achievements
Religion
Hires was a member of the Society of Friends.
Politics
Hires was a Republican.
Personality
Hires was a cheerful, dynamic, and well-liked man.
His generosity stemmed perhaps from a near-death experience after being kicked in the stomach while playing in a football game during his senior year at Haverford College. After eight hours in the operating room to repair a ruptured spleen, Hires was given little chance to survive. The Philadelphia Ledger even printed his obituary. Not only did he recover, but he was able to graduate on time and with honors. It can be said that he was generous to a fault. As one friend later said, "he was a true Quaker. "
Connections
On June 12, 1918, in Germantown, Philadelphia, Hires married Else M. Keppelmann. They had three children.