Background
Sewell Lee Avery was born on November 4, 1874 in Saginaw, Michigan, United States to Waldo Allard Avery who was part owner of the Western Plaster Works, a medium-sized gypsum firm, and Ellen C (Lee) Avery.
Sewell Lee Avery was born on November 4, 1874 in Saginaw, Michigan, United States to Waldo Allard Avery who was part owner of the Western Plaster Works, a medium-sized gypsum firm, and Ellen C (Lee) Avery.
Avery attended Michigan Military Academy, then studied in the University of Michigan Law School. He graduated In 1894 and obtained the B. L. degree.
Avery went to work as manager of its plant at Alabaster, Michigan. In December 1901 twenty-five midwestern gypsum companies, seeking to end internecine price wars, combined to form the United States Gypsum Company. Avery assumed charge of the new firm's Buffalo office and subsequently became sales manager for a larger district centered in Cleveland. The original trust organization of U. S. G. led to bitter intrafirm rivalry.
After two corporate shakeups, Avery emerged in 1905 as president. He retained that position until 1937 and served as chairman until 1951; he and his brother Waldo figured also as the company's two largest stockholders. Avery transformed U. S. Gypsum from a regional producer of plaster into the nation's dominant building materials firm. The concern grew steadily despite adverse conditions in the construction industry before World War I, and it rode the crest of the building boom in the decade after 1919.
Sensing a downturn coming, Avery slashed expenses by laying off almost half the firm's employees in September 1929; he subsequently deployed a $35 million retained earnings surplus to expand horizontally and vertically in order to increase market share while competitors foundered in the depths of the Great Depression.
Even in the 1930's, pretax profits approached 20 percent of sales.
Avery was invited to join the boards of a list of corporations that read like a cross section of American business.
The nation's second largest mail-order house stood poised on the brink of disaster after a decade of business misjudgments. In 1931 Avery caught the eye of Harry P. Davison, a J. P. Morgan partner who was seeking a management wizard to save Montgomery, Ward and Co.
Avery was reluctant to take over Ward's, but the directors offered stock options that would be worth millions if the company recovered.
Avery recruited the nation's best merchandising talent.
Results came quickly.
Of Ward's 35, 000 employees, 22, 000 left their jobs during the first three years of Avery's tenure.
But company earnings recovered smartly, and so did Ward's common: Avery's stock options were worth $1. 8 million by 1934.
Mail order had helped rural folk overcome the monopoly of the country store, and Ward's retained its image as the farmer's friend.
In April 1944, Avery repudiated a contract containing the offending provision and defied the WLB.
Whether a primarily distributive enterprise like Ward's fell within the purview of the act was unclear.
In the postwar decade Avery's fabled business acumen failed him.
Other merchandising chains expanded rapidly to meet the surge in consumer demand.
Ward's did not open a single new store and turned away business rather than carry excess inventory.
Avery believed another depression close at hand and built up reserves to prepare for it.
By 1954 Ward's had amassed almost as much in liquid assets as it registered in annual sales.
But the opportunity to reapply the countercyclical strategy that had brought Avery renown a generation earlier never came.
While competitors turned to increasingly sophisticated market-research departments, Avery kept the most trivial decisions in his own hands.
His successors hired a new management team away from Sears and spent the reserves that he had hoarded for store modernization and expansion.
But they could not overcome Avery's legacy; they remained at a disadvantage in major markets where competitors had moved in ahead of them.
By 1976 Ward's, having become a subsidiary of the Mobil Corporation, ranked only fifth among the nation's retailers.
Avery was praised for his genius for organization by business circles. His skills allowed for his company to expanded his business vertically and horizontally, achieve massive surplus and increased market share during the Great Depression. He also saved Montgomery, Ward and Co. by laying off most of the employees and writing off unprofitable lines.
Avery was a conservative, opposing the extention of government economic controls and socialist inclinations. Like many other Republicans, he did not support Franklin Roosevelt.
Quotations:
"To hell with the government, I want none of your damned advice. "
"When anybody ventures to differ with me, I throw them out of the window. "
Avery was a businessman first, caring the most about his companies' profitability and development. As seen from his quotations, he liked to speak his mind openly. Despite his major successes in business, Avery lived quite modestly.
Quotes from others about the person
One of Avery's employees: "I never saw such a mass movement forward in a business. Avery turned the place inside out, even to the fixtures and decorations. All the fellows were hustling and bustling to make the grade in a big way. Everyone wanted to get in there and pitch for the old man. "
Sewell Avery married Hortense Lenore Wisner on October 11, 1899. They had four children.
