Milliken: The Man

A legacy for Spartanburg, and it keeps on giving

DECEMBER 9, 2009 3:01 p.m. (4)

Roger Milliken once told Spartanburg Mayor Bill Barnet about a garden he visited in England.

Its curator told him the man who planted the garden never got to see the full magnitude of what he had created.

Many say the same about Milliken, a private man who reinvented his family business into what is regarded as the nation’s best-run textile and chemical company, who is credited for the rebirth of the Republican Party in what had been a staunchly Democratic state and whose influence can be seen in almost every square foot of the Wofford College campus.  Continue reading...

 

The Milliken Legacy

Milliken company will remain privately held

JANUARY 6, 2011 11:44 a.m. (0)

Roger Milliken’s epitaph, “Builder,” is simple, yet fitting.

Milliken, who died last week at the age of 95, transformed his family’s textile business into one of the largest textile and chemical companies in the world and one that produced products to make firefighter’s gear flame retardant and Jell-O pudding smooth.

He helped build Spartanburg Day School, helped get the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport built and helped make South Carolina green with the formation of the Noble Tree Foundation and his love of the environment.  Continue reading...

 

Milliken's final wishes revealed

Will outlines how fortune will be doled out

FEBRUARY 19, 2011 3:19 p.m. (0)

There’s dignity in work, the late Roger Milliken told his descendants in a letter written on Milliken & Co. letterhead in 2001 and included in his 111-page will filed in Spartanburg County Probate Court.

The late textile magnate, who ran the day-to-day operations of his family’s textile empire until he was 90 and remained chairman of the board until his death last December at the age of 95, said in the two-page letter he hoped trusts he established would generate enough income to enable his descendants to actively pursue any career.

But, he wrote he hoped the trusts did not provide so much income that his five children and nine grandchildren would do nothing of consequence. He wanted the money to enable them to achieve true self-fulfillment and the happiness that flows there from.  Continue reading...

 

GSP: A History

"Thank God for Mr. Milliken and Charles Daniel"

MARCH 11, 2011 1:23 p.m. (1)

It began with a letter sent in 1945 to Eastern Airlines president Eddie Rickenbacker, inviting him to Greenville to talk about Eastern’s service to the area and the need for a new regional airport location.

Greenville and Spartanburg, back then, had their own downtown airports and the Army, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, told Greenville officials that an airbase would be built south of Greenville to train B-24 and B-25 bomber pilots fighting in World War II. The base was renamed Donaldson Air Force Base in the late 1950s.

As larger aircraft were being built to carry 100 or more passengers, the downtown airports, already 15 years old, were becoming antiquated and unprepared for handling the coming jet age.  Continue reading...

 

Southwest arrives

A plane pull, pep band and a mascot, they’ll all help welcome the airline during weekend celebration

MARCH 10, 2011 1:33 p.m. (0)

Southwest Airlines and Upstate community and business leaders will be doing a lot of celebrating this weekend to commemorate the historic arrival of the low-cost carrier to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

The weekend includes private receptions, a plane pull, a progressive dinner in downtown Greenville, a community service project, First Flight certificates and a round of media conferences.

The service project, a signature event of Southwest’s entering a new market, will be tree plantings in Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Perhaps the most sentimental of the events will be the planting of a tree at GSP at the beginning of a Monday media conference in honor of Roger Milliken. Milliken was the only chairman of the airport commission until his death this past December. The tree plantings are symbolic of GSP and Southwest planting new roots together.  Continue reading...

 

Milliken, crafting a future

Company elevates commitment to product innovation

MAY 12, 2011 10:18 a.m. (0)

For 150 years, the face of Milliken, the company, was Milliken, the family.  Over the last six decades, it was Roger Milliken.

He transformed the company from a cloth, cut and sew maker to a diversified powerhouse with 2,200 patents, 19,000 products, 7,000 employees and 39 manufacturing plants around the world.

He then put in motion leadership changes to thrive in a global marketplace without him.  Continue reading...

 

Fiber Options

This Upstate company is turning bottles into seats

JANUARY 5, 2012 1:33 p.m. (0)

Ford may sell fewer than 10,000 of its new Focus all-electric sedans this year, but the car’s seat covers made entirely from recycled materials represents a major coup for Upstate’s Sage Automotive Interiors.

With just two years as a stand-alone company but decades of environmentally friendly DNA from Milliken Co., Sage is positioned as the industry leader in using recycled materials for seat cloth for cars and trucks.

The Focus EV’s seat covers originate with waste polyester from Sage’s Avalon plant in Toccoa, Ga. The waste is sent to a Unifi Inc. plant in North Carolina where it is combined with recycled plastic bottles to make REPREVE, a branded synthetic.  Continue reading...