Background
John Biggers was born on December 19, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, the son of William David Biggers, a businessman, and Emma Melvina Fisse.
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John David Biggers
Edit ProfileEducation
John attended Smith Academy in St. Louis, studied for a year at the University of Washington in St. Louis (1905 - 1906), and graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1909.
Career
While in college John worked for the Continental Screen Company of Detroit, where his father was general manager. In 1909, Biggers joined Larned, Carter and Company, overalls manufacturers, and by 1910 he had become the company's advertising manager. He then entered chamber of commerce work, first as an assistant secretary of the Detroit Board of Commerce (1910 - 1911) and later as secretary of the Toledo Commerce Club (1911 - 1914). His service in the latter position began what he later called a "romance with Toledo. "
In 1914, Biggers joined the Owens Bottle Company in Toledo, where he rose to vice-president in charge of sales, became closely associated with Edward D. Libbey, a leader in the glass industry, and began a career in glass manufacturing that, with the exception of the years 1926-1930, lasted until his retirement. During this four-year interval he became affiliated with the Graham brothers (Joseph, Robert, and Ray) and their ventures in the automobile industry. In 1926 and 1927, he was managing director of Dodge Brothers in London and subsequently served as an official of the Graham Brothers Corporation, the Graham-Paige Corporation, and the Graham-Paige International Corporation.
In 1930, Biggers became president and chief executive officer of the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company, which under his direction grew to become the nation's leading producer of window and safety glass and its second-largest producer of plate glass. Libbey-Owens-Ford owed its success partly to a contract signed in 1931 with General Motors, under the terms of which it bought GM's glass-making facilities and became its exclusive supplier of automotive glass. Other factors played a part, among them, a policy of promoting the usage of glass by manufacturers, the successful exploitation of a new technique for drawing glass from furnaces in sheets, a pioneering role in securing the adoption of safety glass by automobile manufacturers, and the addition of such new product lines as Tuf-flex (a heat-tempered plate glass), thermopanes (glass insulating units), Vitrolite (colored structural glass for use in construction), and Plaskon plastics (for use in automobiles and household products).
Under Biggers, the company acquired a reputation as one of the nation's most progressive companies and one of its most profitable during the Great Depression. It was considered a leader in combining price stability with an enlightened labor outlook.
Biggers was a Republican critical of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. But he was also a strong advocate of business-government teamwork and was on friendly terms with Roosevelt personally. In 1937, he accepted an appointment to the Commerce Department's Business Advisory Council and agreed to head the recently authorized U. S. Census of Partial Employment, Unemployment, and Occupations. This task earned him praise both for the thoroughness of the undertaking and for spending less than $2 million of his $5 million appropriation. In 1940, Biggers became a deputy commissioner on the Defense Advisory Commission, where he worked primarily as an assistant to William Knudsen in efforts to foster defense production.
In 1941, he served both as chief of production for the Office of Production Management and as head of an OPM commodity section responsible for steel, aluminum, magnesium, paper, pulp, and chemicals. And in September 1941, Biggers was sent to London as a special minister in charge of coordinating British and American war production and speeding deliveries under the Lend-Lease Act. In late 1941, Biggers returned to Libbey-Owens-Ford, where he continued as chief executive officer until his retirement in 1960.
After his retirement, Biggers continued to hold directorships in several major corporations and to play an important role in Toledo's economic and civic development, especially as the principal organizer of the Toledo Area Development Corporation and as a prominent supporter of the Toledo Museum of Art, the Toledo Hospital, the University of Toledo, and the Toledo Boys Club. He died at his home in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Achievements
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Biggers is remembered chiefly for his contributions to the growth of the glass industry and for his industrial statesmanship in trying to build bridges between business and government, find a basis for labor-management cooperation, and develop a corporate citizenship imbued with a sense of community responsibility. For his contributions to America's "miracle of production" during World War II, Biggers received the President's Medal for Merit, and after the war he won further honors as an internationally recognized "industrial statesman" and a "builder of enterprise. " Forbes named him one of the "fifty foremost business leaders" in 1948. During his career he saw Libbey-Owens-Ford grow from $12 million in sales and 2, 607 employees in 1930 to more than $300 million in sales and 12, 692 employees in 1960. Biggers also helped form the Toledo Labor-Management-Citizens Committee, which became a model for organizing industrial peace in other cities and reflected his strong faith in collective bargaining, community action, and labor returns geared to gains in industrial productivity.
Personality
Biggers was a handsome, courtly, even-tempered individual who always retained some of the "boosterism" associated with the "Chamber of Commerce" style, but who was also a master of business management, a commanding presence in the boardroom and administrative conference, and an articulate and emphatic spokesman for the positions he held.
Connections
On October 22, 1912, Biggers married Mary Isobel Kelsey; they had three children. His first wife died in 1942, and on June 24, 1944, he married Frances Morrison Kline Doyle; they had no children.
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Born
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Died
February 31, 1973 (aged 85) -
Resting place
Woodlawn Cemetery, Toledo, Ohio, United States -
Nationality
American -
Political Party
Republican