TRIVIA, STORIES AND STUFF


MEMPHIS HEADQUARTERS

Richmond VA was the original headquarters of Binswanger Glass Company which was started by the Binswangers in 1872.

It was moved to Memphis in 1974 so that Mickey Binswanger could become the president. He lived in Memphis and did not want to move to Richmond.

When the headquarters moved to Memphis it was first located inside the old Memphis Branch on Hollywood at the south end of the offices there.

Jean Ewell was the first corporate office clerical employee hired in Memphis, and will be the last of the original staff when the office closes.

The only corporate employees that moved to Memphis from Richmond were Margaret Robins and Bobby Harding.

The headquarters was once located at 5885 Ridgeway Parkway – just on the east side of the Malco theater before relocating to the current location on the west side of the Malco. It was known then as the “General Office” until Mark Burk changed it to “Corporate”.

Charles Witherington was one of the HR managers in Memphis headquarters before moving to the Eastern Division Office as HR Manager. He would later move to Atlanta to become the branch manager there before becoming the VP and General Manager of the Distribution Division.

Before the drug/alcohol policy, several corporate office employees kept a bottle in their desks to enjoy when working late hours. Funny how those folks were never in a hurry to leave the office at 5:00 back then.

From the third floor windows on the south side of the office there is a Holiday Inn Hotel building. Before it was built, it was a wooded area with a clearing in the center that was accessed by a gravel road. Couples would use the area as a lover’s lane and often met there for a late afternoon rendezvous. While the area was secluded at ground level, it could clearly be seen from the third floor of our office building. There were many spring and summer afternoons when dozens of corporate staff, including Micky Binswanger would gather at the windows and pass around binoculars to ensure everyone got a good look.

When William B Hoffman was the President of the company following Mickey Binswanger’s retirement, he ordered the creation of an “office rules” manual for the corporate office. Among those rules: Desks must be cleared every day before leaving the office. Employees were allowed only one small potted plant and one personal or family picture in their office or cubicle. Women were required to wear underwear. Men must arrive and depart wearing a sport coat or suit coat. Neckties were required. (Laura Bowden added that ladies were also required to wear panty hose, and Mr. Hoffman suggested they keep an extra pair in their desk should the need arise to change them. Mickey Trussell added: “I remember Hoffman’s rule on women’s underwear… I tried to apply for the job of enforcing that rule but was unsuccessful. But for a while, I did deliver panty hose to Jean Ewell and others from a local manufacturing outlet here in Grenada whenever I had to come to corporate. (I HAD to say that Jean!”))

Mr. Hoffman once ordered his secretary to destroy any pictures, articles, newsletters, etc. that were in the company archives. This effectively wiped out most of the historical memorabilia of the company that dated back to it’s founding in 1872 , except for some items employees had stashed away in their work areas or that remained in Richmond.

Back in the day when the company was profitable and corporate had Christmas parties, Hoffman was not happy with the entertainment at the first party he attended after becoming president. The band played dance music which everyone enjoyed - except him. He thought their music was geared too much toward the younger people and it was too loud. The following year he insisted that he select the band. It was a small orchestra that looked like Lawrence Welk’s band without Lawrence. The company probably saved a lot of money that year. It was the shortest party of them all.

William B. Hoffman died in 2009.

MEMPHIS BRANCH and GLASCRAFT

I started as a driver in 1973 at the Memphis Branch auto glass warehouse. As the newest employee, I was required to clean and mop the restrooms daily.

The Memphis branch was first located on Union Ave near the Commercial appeal. There were rumors were that Johnny Cash once worked there as a delivery driver. (Correction thanks to Mike McCown – It was Charley Pride)

Richard Binswanger was a purchasing agent at the Memphis Branch before moving to Glasscraft. Ron Markham was the purchasing agent in Memphis before taking over as manager in Jackson MS.

Glasscraft started at the Memphis branch on Hollywood and moved into a larger facility near the penal farm. The original Glasscraft made glass table tops and insulated glass units.

Jim Gentry was the manager of the insulated glass department at Glasscraft until the table top business grew so much there was no room for insulated glass production and the department was eliminated.

Jim would move to the old Central Region office to work for Jack Sanders who was Director of purchasing with David Staten as administrative assistant.

Richard Binswanger would eventually take over as VP in charge of Glasscraft.

Glasscraft etched the names on the Vietnam memorial. Brian Carter led the project and developed the process used. He later started Glassical, a decorative glass business which remains in Memphis. A large piece of the stone with the names has been in the reception area of the corporate office for several years. It was recently donated to the Pink Palace.

The Memphis once branch had a stained glass department that created and installed windows for churches across the country. The stained glass business was “unprofitable” so it was sold to the department manager, Mickey Laukhuff, who ran it as a very profitable business under the name “Laukhuff Stained Glass. Laukhuff Stained Glass would eventually be sold to Jack Raby, former VP of sales and marketing for Binswanger.

Memphis did most of the decorative glass and mirror work in Elvis Presley’s house not long before he died.

In the 60s, one of the Memphis branch drivers didn’t  show up at closing time. They found his truck parked near a railroad track. For some reason he had gotten mad and hopped a freight train. He showed up again a couple years later and eventually came back to work for the company.

A forklift driver at the Memphis Branch was suspected to be drinking on the job. It was confirmed after he drove the forklift off a 5 foot loading dock. He was lucky to escape with minor cuts and bruises.

Once when the construction business was slow, the Memphis Branch under Hunter McKenzie distributed car batteries to gas stations and auto parts stores to make up for lost construction sales.

To control office supply expenses, the Memphis Branch once required employees to turn in the stub of their wooden pencils before they could get a new one.

There was a story that Jim Sheppard, manager at the Jackson, MS and later Memphis branch once owned a couple of Kentucky Fried Chicken stores. As the story goes he was told by the company that he could not effectively run a Binswanger branch while owning these stores so he was forced to sell them.

Memphis Branch once had a full-time housekeeper know as Ms. Velma. At closing time she would knock on the door then peek into the men’s restroom to see if there was anyone inside before she cleaned. One day Ms Velma knocked, peeked inside and saw “legs” under the stall door so she did some of her other chores before returning later to check again. Again, she saw the “legs” under the stall door. This process was repeated several times before a frightened Ms Velma ran through the warehouse screaming for the maintenance man, Herman Campbell. “Mr. Herman! Mr. Herman! Somebody died in the restroom!!!” When Herman investigated, he found a pair of work pants draped over the toilet along with a pair of shoes on the floor arranged to appear as if the stall was in use.

The supervisor at the Memphis auto glass warehouse once complained about not having his own office. He came in one day to see his name on one of the doors. Inside was a small desk with a pad of paper and an ink pen nicely arranged in front of the commode.

A glass cutter at the Memphis branch once destroyed several truckloads of stoces. His cutting table was on a track that ran parallel to the row of stoce racks. A spacer (felt covered 2X4) between two of the stoce packs had fallen partly onto the table track while the cutter was moving the table down the track. When the table hit the spacer it pushed several stoce packs over, then the others fell like dominoes. It took several days to clean up all of the broken glass.

BINSWANGER MIRROR COMPANY

The Binswanger Mirror plant was built in 1947, but caught fire and burned only a few days before it was scheduled to open. Fortunately long term employee, Ms Jessie Brannon had completed the insurance forms only a day or so before the fire and it was rebuilt.

The Mirror Plant expanded with a second operation in Chandler, AZ in late ‘70’s under the leadership of Bob Powell, and later Herb Parks. It did not make it, and the silver and lami lines were sent back to Grenada in 1983 and are still in operation today.

According to Mickey Trussell, “Witherington was Corp HR when our controller Bill Martin left the company. I was plant accountant at the time. Charles made a special trip down to Grenada just to tell me I would NOT be getting the controller job, instead they would give me some of the duties (with no additional pay of course… he was cheap then too), but MOST would be sent UP to the corporate office. Yeah… right!”

Binswanger Mirror produced framed mirrors in Grenada and Binswanger Glass retail stores had an “annual framed mirror sale” which always brought in a lot of new customers.

TRIVIA

The company had many products that most are not familiar with over the years.

We had millwork branches that produced wooden windows, doors and trim for residential construction.

During the first “energy crisis” many branches sold metal fireplace inserts.

Many of the Binswanger stores sold paint along with glass.

Some distribution branches sold hollow metal doors and toilet partitions and other restroom equipment.

Binswanger offered auto upholstery services. Little Rock was the last to close their upholstery shop.

Some distribution branches distributed aluminum windows for residential construction.

At one time, hiring of family members was encouraged, and dating by employees was not a problem. The company had many married couples, children and siblings working for the company over the years.

There was a large (50-60lb) bronze plaque depicting the founding Binswanger brothers on the original Richmond VA building that first housed the headquarters. That plaque was sent to the Memphis headquarters for storage. It mysteriously disappeared from the storage room a few years later.

One of the Binswanger stores once had a meth lab operating inside.

The manager of one Binswanger store had a reclining chair behind the counter area where he observed the operations.

In the 80’s it was rumored that one of the division V.P.s had a television in his office and the staff would be invited to join him in the afternoons to watch “The 3 Stooges.”

Before it was closed in 1986, the Texas Region office in Fort Worth once had a fully stocked bar. Most days at 5:00 – not one minute before – the office secretary would crack the ice and take drink orders from the staff.

One Texas manager once bragged that he saved money by requiring his employees to bring their own toilet paper, another by purchasing the most harsh toilet paper he could find to encourage employees to bring their own.

New warehouse employees that didn’t know better were often pranked by the veterans. They would be sent to look for non-existent tools such as the “Glass Bubble Pick” (to remove bubbles from glass) and the “Box Stretcher.” Every veteran approached by the rookies would send them to another employee and have them going in circles looking for these tools.  

In the ‘70s the company had a fabrication plant called Hamilton of Indiana that produced tempered and insulated glass. Because it didn’t really fit in with our “core” business of distribution and retail it was sold to the plant management, who ran it as a profitable company for years afterward. Not sure if it is the same company but a Hamilton Glass still exists there.

The Binswanger family sold out to National Gypsum Company around 1968. It sold again in the 80s to Australian Consolidated Industries (where the ACI came from). Later ACI was taken over by a partnership between British Tire and Rubber and Nylex, which was an Australian company. They would later sell it to Vitro.

The presidents of the company beginning in the late 60s: Millard Binswanger, Mickey Binswanger, William B Hoffman, Joseph Keller, Huw Davies, Mark Burke, Luis Gonzalez and Arturo Carillo.

Sales meeting themes over the years (according to Haynes Hoddinott): Top Banana, Betting on the Future, Communicate Sales, The Competitive Edge, and Change for the Better. A later meeting was put together by a sales and marketing group from Memphis. The owner of that group who ran the meeting was Jim Rout, who would eventually become the Shelby County Mayor.