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Show The Salt Like Tribune, Sunday, February 16, 1966 S7 BY GUY BOULTON Tribune Staff Writer ciates. And Tom Peters and Nancy Austins A Passion for Excellence, a sequel to In Search of Excellence mentions the company several times. In addition, Inc. magazine has done a cover story on W.L. Gore & Associates, Bill Gore has received an Excellence in Management award from Industry Week, and the company has been featured in Forbes. All this for a company void of hierarchy a company that defies, even flouts, the conventions of corporate America. Gore-Te- x is the most recognizable product manufactured by W.L. Gore & Associates and it is responsible for a good chunk of the companys growth. A waterproof fabric that breathes, Gore-Te- x quickly is becoming as ubiquitous in the outdoors as dark suits in a bank. The product is used in jackets, sleeping bags, tents, shoes and backpacks and NASAs space suits. is a relatively new product that was developed in 1976. But Gore-Te- x W.L. Gore & Associates first product was more prosaic ribbon cable used to insulate electrical wiring. Both Gore-Te- x and the ribbon cable are made from a plastic called polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), better known as Teflon,',. Equipped with a degree from Westminster and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Utah, Bill Gore began his career at the Remington Arms plant in Salt Lake City and progressed to a successful career with its parent company, E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co. W.L. Gore & Associates roots lay in a task force formed to study PTFE (Teflon) at Dupont. Working on the task force was the most exciting moment in Bill Gores time with the company. There were no bosses and no titles on the task force, merely a group of people with various skills working toward a common goal. Bill Gore first sensed how inspired and innovative people become once freed of the bureaucratic constraints common in a big corporation. When we went back to work, it was a letdown, he says. He also first sensed PTFE's potential, as an almost perfect insulator of electricity, for the relatively embryonic industry of computers. After the task force was disbanded, Bill Gore continued experimenting with PTFE in his basement. A suggestion from his son, Bob, led to a method of making ribbon cable out of PTFC that could be used to insulate electrical wiring. He took the product to Dupont. The company was uninterested. He still remained convinced of the products potential. About a year later, in 1958, Bill and Vieve Gore sat down, figured out their net worth and worked out a budget. By mortgaging their home and using their savings, they figured they could last for two years. Two of their g five children in college. Bill Gore was 45 and had a job and successful career. Nonetheless, they decided to form W.L. Gore & Associates to manufacture ribbon cable. When he quit his job, he came home and told his wife Were either going to be millionaires or well be broke, recalls Anna Moyar, Bill Gores younger sister who lives in Salt Lake City. When they got started, I knew he was going to be a millionaire, she says. I think everybody had confidence because of the kind of work he did. He dedicated himself completely. When we started, we put our whole lives into it, Vieve Gore says. My mother and father came out to do things like the dishes and keep the house. The Gores averaged about six hours of often restless sleep a night. They had 25 people working in three shifts in their basement. All night long the machines would be shaking below our bedroom and waking us, Vieve Gore says. Their kitchen was transformed into a workshop compounds were mixed in their blender and their oven was set at its highest temperature, baking materials throughout the night. It ended up that it took just about two years to make it, Vieve Gore says. "We had completely used up everything we had. We were working out of our savings and I was handling the bank account. It was a terribly painful thing to pay someone out of our savings, she says. We had some really good people join us and as a matter of faith they took as much of their salary as they could in stock. The stock was valued at $150 a share then; the stock now is worth $20,000 a share and has split several times. well-payin- Bill and Vieve Gore began W.L. Gore & Associates 28 years ago in the basement of their home. Their son. Bob (right), joined them in 1963. The company now has annual sales of $ 300 4,000 million and associates. .... From the beginning, Bill Gore was determined to recreate the freedom he had experienced working on the PTFE task force. When we started the business, I was all hyped on freedom and how creative people were, he says. And he believed that traditional, hierarchical organizations stifled creativity. You have to maximize freedom because unless people have the freedom to try new you are things to experiment, to innovate not going to make progress, Bill Gore says. "Every business, every operation, every activity can be improved. In business circles, W.L. Gore & Associates is as for its lattice structure as for Gore-TeThe lattice structure is the antithesis of the pyramid structure characteristic of corporate America. well-know- n A TYPICAL CORPORATION IS ORGANIZED with the chief executive officer is at the top, the workers at the bottom and numerous layers of management in between; W.L. Gore & Associates is organized with no one at the top, no one at the bottom and no layers of management. Rather than orders moving from the top down, as in a at W.L. Gore & Associates hierarchical structure, the See S-- 8, Column 1 Design by Rhondo Halles |
