George Borg was born on October 24, 1887, in West Burlington, Iowa, United States, the son of Charles William Borg and Amelia Gustafson. His father had emigrated from Sweden in 1882 and in 1894 went to work for Deere and Mansur Company, in Moline, Illinois, manufacturers of agricultural implements.
Shortly before graduation from public school, George Borg was apprenticed to Deere and Mansur. Later he also attended a business course at Augustana College, in Rock Island, Illinois.
George Borg continued in the position after his father quit the firm to pursue his own inventions, the first of which was a wood-working machine that shaped wagon tongues (1904). In May 1904, Borg's father, in association with Marshall Beck, established Borg and Beck, manufacturers of woodworking machines; George subsequently moved over to the new firm. He was able to help modernize and expand the business side of the partnership, previously run primarily by Beck. The problems experienced by the Moline automobile firm, Velie Company, in manufacturing clutches led to expansion into that field. Stories differ on the crucial point of whether Charles Borg was the true inventor of the improved clutch or whether he opposed the scheme and George himself did the development. In either case the firm developed and then manufactured an improved disk clutch, designed not only to work better but to be easier to manufacture with relatively unskilled help. He was successful in introducing the clutch to the Jeffrey Company, which had a large truck order from the federal government for use in Mexico. As volume rose he induced the Tom Warner Company of Toledo to use his clutches in its transmissions. Similar agreements were concluded with other manufacturers.
At the end of World War I Borg opened a factory in Chicago. In 1921 the partnership was purchased by a bank for $1. 2 million and George Borg became head of the new company. Eager to diversify, Borg soon established the Standard Parts Company and opened a chain of stores to sell automotive parts. In the late 1920's he also began an effort to merge with related firms, the first of which was the Warner Gear Company, soon joined by the Mechanics Universal Joint Company, the Marvel Carburetor Company, and others. Organized by banking interests, the new company was designed to withstand the trend among the largest automobile firms toward the manufacture of their own components. The new Borg-Warner Corporation was founded in 1928 with stock valued at $90 million. George Borg was president. By 1945 the firm had fifteen divisions, eight subsidiaries, twenty-seven plants, and more than eighty products including stoves, refrigerators, laundry equipment, and farm implements in addition to automobile components.
Meanwhile, Borg had established the George W. Borg Corporation, to manufacture automobile clocks. In 1940 he withdrew from direction of Borg-Warner to devote his attention to his own company, which by the mid-1950's was also producing electronic devices, precision instruments, and textiles and had a net operating income, after taxes, of $1. 1 million. Shortly before the war the Borg Corporation had purchased a bankrupt textile mill in Delavan, Wisconsin. The mill operated on military contracts during the war, and shortly thereafter Borg and his engineers began to experiment with several of the knitting machines that had been used to make fleecy sweaters. The redesigned machines' first product was a round knit wool pad for polishing automobiles. Next they were used to make the paint rollers that were being pioneered by a neighbor, A. L. Touchet, and by 1954 about 90 percent of all rollers used Borg's new, thick-piled Dynel fabric. A variation, developed under the name of Borgana, was used for women's clothing.
Borg acquired ranch properties near Phoenix, Arizona, raising cotton, cattle, and grapes and, for a time, operating a luxury hotel called the Casa Blanca. Borg died in Janesville, Wisconsin. His money is now partly channeled through the George W. Borg Foundation.
A man with an aggressive drive for accumulation, George Borg slept little and restlessly investigated new avenues for the expression of his business talent. He dressed modestly, deprecated his own mechanicaland inventive contributions, and was generous with his wealth, especially toward the educationally underprivileged.
Borg married Florence Mary Wadsworth, from whom he was later divorced; they had two children. He then married Effie Task Brown; they had no children.
