assistant executive philanthropist vice president
Edgar E. Rand was born circa 1905 in Saint Louis, Missouri. His father, Frank Chambless Rand, served as the President of the International Shoe Company. His mother was Nettie Hale, the daughter of British-born Texas rancher, publisher and composer Philip Henry Hale.
Rand was educated in public schools. Rand traveled in Europe and studied in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1922 to 1923.
He served as the President of the International Shoe Company from 1950 to 1955. He went to Webb School, a prep school in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He returned to the United States and enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1923, graduating in 1927.
Rand started his career at the International Shoe Company in 1927.
He initially worked at their plant in Sikeston, Missouri. In 1939, he was elected to their Board of Directors.
At the outset of World World War II, Rand joined the Office of Price Administration and the War Production Board, where he worked until 1944. From 1945 to 1946, he was an assistant to Democratic Senator Stuart Symington, the head of the War Assets Administration.
Rand returned to the International Shoe Company in 1947.
He served as its Vice President from 1947 to 1950, and as its President from 1950 to 1955. Meanwhile, in 1953, he decided to close down their plant in Saint Charles, Missouri and restructure their operations in Flora, Illinois, Windsor, Missouri and Kirksville, Missouri. However, that same year, the company sales had gone up by 22% under his leadership.
That same year, he opened a new plant in Bryan, Texas.
A year later, the company acquired Savage Shoes Limited, a Canadian shoe manufacturer, in 1954. Rand served on the Board of Trustees of the Barnes Hospital in Saint Louis.
Additionally, he served on the Board of Trust of his alma mater, Vanderbilt University. Rand died of a heart attack on October 26, 1955 while staying at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.
His funeral took place at Saint John"s Methodist Church, and he was buried at the Bellefontaine Cemetery in Saint At the time of his death, he was worth United States$2,523,854.
However, by 1955, members of the United Shoe Workers of America and the Boot and Shoe Workers of America, two labor unions, were striking against the company, demading a 12% wage increase.
