My name is Harris A. Neil Jr. I worked at Maybelline in Chicago from January, 1959 to August, 1968, a period of great growth and excitement in the history of the company. Among the wonderful people I had the privilege of working with were your cousin, Tom Lyle Williams Junior, and Harold “Rags” Ragland. I was very much their junior, 28 years old when I started in 1959. The math tells you that I’m now 82.
As Production Manager, in a highly marketing-oriented company, I would like to explain the packaging program, as it came down during those years of growth and new product rollouts. The changes and improvements you mentioned finally resulted in a whole new look and methodology, and kept our production floor plenty busy.
I would also like to explain the outside vendor program, which people nowadays call “supply chain management” or simply “logistics.” That involved both packaging and product components, which became more of a tightrope act as volume and product increases pushed us forward. It was even more exciting because we only had a finite amount of floor space for warehousing and production.
I want to comment on the Maybelline management style and interactions as I saw them from my “worm’s-eye” view. I still remember it well, and learned as I moved on in life that it was unique, but it was I think bewildering to the Plough group who did things very differently.
And yes, I want to give my thoughts on the Plough merger, as it was announced and as I lived through it for the ten months I remained with Maybelline afterward. It became a different company immediately without Tom Jr., Rags and Dorothy Molander. That topic alone is one that maybe will make this story worthwhile all by itself. Also, and only in this subject area, we’ll have to discuss some negative events, but they happened and we’ll face them head on.
Then there’s T. L.’s gift to his long-time employees. I couldn't find the letter outlining the details of the gift, but I clearly remember the basics, and can give you a pretty fair idea of the scope and impact of this wonderful gesture on his part.
Stay tuned tomorrow. I will be posting more of Harris A. Neil Jr.'s story everyday for the next two weeks. If you are interested in business, marketing and production, you won't want to miss the inside workings of a Mega-Company from the man who was there and saw it all unfold everyday.
