Strong Ties

Katharine Ogden Michaels

Description

Events with the author and Simpson family in the East Bay and Marin

B2B through Bay Area bookstores

Bay Area media blitz

Events with the Simpson Foundation

An in-depth look at the life of Oakland, California native, Barclay Simpson, Strong Ties focuses on the set of convictions and leadership qualities that allowed Simpson to build a successful business from nothing and to become one of the major philanthropists in the San Francisco Bay Area. A Navy pilot during World War II, he didn’t graduate from college until over 20 years after he dropped out of UC Berkeley in 1946 to help save his father’s Emeryville-based window screens business from bankruptcy. Largely self-taught, he went on in 1956 to found Simpson Manufacturing Co, Inc., which he grew from a small, artisan business that fabricated metal connectors into a world-wide, publicly-traded company, known throughout the construction industry as a manufacturer of over 4000 distinct, highly engineered products for tying one structural element to another in residential and commercial projects.

In building the company, he developed a set of company principles—revolutionary for their times—that placed employees at the center of his business. Central to these principles was a compensation system that included broad-based, quarterly profit-sharing along with employee development and education programs that promoted hiring from within the ranks of the company, thereby allowing employees to build life-long careers in which many were able to go from hourly production line labor to management.

As US companies increasingly grapple with the role of capitalism in giving back to their employees and the communities in which they are based, Barclay Simpson’s philosophy makes for a particularly unusual and relevant American business story. Equally pertinent in these volatile times is the story of how he successfully transferred his core business principles to his philanthropic work, providing major financial and in-kind support to such East Bay non-profit organizations as UC Berkeley, Girls Inc of Alameda County, the California College of the Arts, the Oakland Museum, the California Shakespeare Theater and many others, with a special focus on the arts and the education of low income kids.

A story of Barclay Simpson’s leadership style as both a business man and a philanthropist, Strong Ties chronicles the astounding continuity between his views on making money, and giving it away.

Sujets

• Problem Solving
• Decision-Making
• Gestion et management
• General officer
• Economics
• Business
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Bird Books
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781644283004
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

this is a genuine rare bird book
Rare Bird Books 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042 rarebirdlit.com
Copyright © 2022 by Katharine Ogden Michaels
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address: Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department 6044 North Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90042
Set in Minion Pro
epub isbn : 9781644283004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Michaels, Katharine Ogden, author. | Adamson, Judith K., author. Title: Strong ties : Barclay Simpson and the Pursuit of the Common Good in Business and Philanthropy / by Katharine Ogden Michaels, with Judith K. Adamson. Description: First paperback edition. | Los Angeles, Calif. : Rare Bird Books, [2021]Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2021019967 | ISBN 9781644282175 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Simpson, Barclay. | Simpson Manufacturing Co. | Building materials industry—United States—History. | Businesspeople—California—San Francisco—Biography. | Philanthropists—California—San Francisco—Biography. Classification: LCC HD9715.8.U64 S5665 2021 | DDC 338.7/69092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019967


For Sharon

Barc holding a Strong Tie.



Acknowledgments
T hanks to Barclay, Sharon, and all of their children; the staff and board of Simpson Manufacturing Company, Inc., including Earl “Budd” Cheit, Barry Williams, Jennifer Chatman, Tom Fitzmyers, Terry Kingsfather, Karen Colonias, Jacinta Pister, Kristin Lincoln, John Herrera, Mike Plunk, Joseph Way, and Laurent Versluysen, along with many others; UC Berkeley, including Chancellor Robert Birgeneau; staff and board members of Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, including Roselyne “Cissie” Swig, Noel Nellis, and Lawrence Rinder; Dean Rich Lyons of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business; Sandy Barbour, formerly of UC Athletics; Neil Henry, formerly of the Bancroft Library; Jennifer Cutting of the UC Berkeley Development Office; Pat Loomes, Linda Boessenecker, Julayne Virgil, and Monica Manriquez of Girls Inc. of Alameda County; the staff and artists of the Barclay Simpson Fine Arts Gallery, including Lynda Dann and Joseph Way; Susan Avila of the California College of Arts; Lori Fogarty of the Oakland Museum of California; former BART staff and board members, including Arthur Shartsis, Mike Healy, and Joan Van Horn; the California Shakespeare Theater, including Jonathan Moscone and Sharon Simpson; Peggy White of the Diablo Regional Arts Association; Simon Baker, family friend and financial advisor to the PSB Fund; and Joe Di Prisco of the Simpson Literary Prize for his fine counsel and support throughout and for suggesting the use of the “Strong Ties” metaphor in the title.


Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
In the Gallery
PART I
Genes and Good Luck
Chapter 1
Up on the Roof: Snapshot of Pearl Harbor from the Bay
Chapter 2
Origins: Scottish, Yankee, and Oakland Roots
Chapter 3
From Here to Eternity: Berkeley to Alaska to Tokyo 1939–1945
Chapter 4
Home Again
Chapter 5
The Family Business
Chapter 6
A Knock on the Door
Chapter 7
Bill
PART II
Essence of a Business
Chapter 8
Product: The Leap into Connectors
Chapter 9
Place: From East Oakland to San Leandro
Chapter 10
People: Giants and Genius
Chapter 11
Principles: A Secular Catechism
Chapter 12
Practice: The Making of the Simpson Brand
PART III
From Artisan Business to Technical Powerhouse
Chapter 13
Two-Headed Command: Continuity and Change
Chapter 14
Entrepreneurship and the Reiterative Process
Chapter 15
Expansion
Chapter 16
Transmitting the Creed
PART IV
Sharon and the Double Family
Chapter 17
Courtship
Chapter 18
The Double Family
Chapter 19
After the Wedding: The Crowded Condo, Winnie in DC, and Rolling in the Snow
Chapter 20
Special Projects, Pruning, and Housing a Marriage
PART V
Other Passions
Chapter 21
Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART)
Chapter 22
Art Collecting and the Gallery
PART VI
Put Something Back: Conviction in Action
Chapter 23
Motives and Methods of Philanthropy
Chapter 24
The PSB Fund
Chapter 25
The Art of Giving to the Arts
Chapter 26
University of California at Berkeley: Pole Star 7
Chapter 27
Girls Inc. of Alameda County, California (Girls Inc.): Transformational Giving
PART VII
Success and Succession: New Cooks in the Sauce
Chapter 28
Tone at the Top
Chapter 29
The Simpson Manufacturing Company, Inc. Board of Directors 1
Chapter 30
Salesman in Chief Again
Chapter 31
End of an Era, Beginning of an Era
Chapter 32
Tweaking the Sauce and the Big Hand-Off
Part VIII
Retirement
Chapter 33
The Wager
Chapter 34
Letters to and from a “Servant Leader”
Chapter 35
Sightings: Brilliant Plumage
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments from the Community: The Berkeley Medal
Chapter 37
2014: Passages
Chapter 38
Legacy: Measuring Value
Epilogue
Back in the Gallery
Interviewees
Bios



Prologue
In the Gallery
M y first personal encounter with Barclay Simpson 1 (Barclay or Barc; see bio)—founder and prime mover of the Simpson Manufacturing Company, Inc. 2 (Simpson Manufacturing)—was at the Barclay Simpson Fine Arts Gallery in Lafayette, California, sometime in spring of 1981. Upon knocking on the door of the gallery, I was met by a young man in a workman’s apron who ushered me into a large room with white walls. I remember the sensation of walking out of the strong glare of midday sun into the gloom of the gallery, whose only window was the glass door on which I had tentatively knocked. As my eyes adjusted, I was first confused then amazed to find myself surrounded by fine prints, including those by Rembrandt and Whistler.
The young man said he would let Barclay know that I had arrived. When he disappeared, I moved closer to the prints, trying to absorb the fact of their existence in this stark, unlikely place, a converted industrial building along a strip-commercial thoroughfare in a suburban town east of the Berkeley hills and the glittering expanse of the San Francisco Bay to the west. A few moments later, Barclay found me staring fixedly at the moody prints, etched line and shadow, pulled from incised metal plates. Looking up, I was greeted by a big smile and a resounding hello . He asked me if I would like to see the picture-framing lab in the basement as well as other parts of the collection. Here, I also met Sharon, Barc’s wife, elegant in jeans and rolled-up sleeves and a welcoming expression.
Before that day, I had only seen Barclay from a distance at a public meeting of the board of directors of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) where, as one of nine elected members, he served between 1976 and 1988. I had recently been hired into the BART Planning Department. That day in the gallery, I was meeting him to discuss the convening of a steering committee made up of elected officials and staff from Contra Costa County cities along the transit corridor to consider the possible benefits of encouraging public-private partnerships involving the BART-owned lands.
Before my meeting with Barclay, I had been briefed by my boss on the various members of the BART Board of Directors. My memory is that Barc was described to me as a successful businessman, smart, straightforward, honest, fair, and rational. At the time, I hadn’t yet realized exactly how rare that combination of qualities was in an elected official—or anybody. I don’t remember if my boss also told me that Barclay was impatient—of wasted time, of pretense, of long meetings, of circuitous explanations, of the word “stress,” of calculators, of wallowing and doomed pursuits, of long meetings. But whatever I knew about him in advance, when I knocked on the door of the gallery, I wasn’t expecting what I found.
•
In August 2012, thirty-one years after I first arrived at that threshold, I found myself once again at the door of the gallery. This time, when I came in from the searing hot light, there were no prints left on the walls. The Whistlers had been bequeathed to the UC Berkeley Art Museum and the Rembrandts were in storage awaiting their eventual fate. Also vanished were the brightly colored canvases and installations produced by students from the California College of Art (CCA) and by professional artists from the Mississippi to the Seine, which had intermittently graced the walls of the gallery for the thirteen years it was open to the public.
Barc met me at the front door with the same booming hello that I had known for three decades. He led me through the gloom to his library, lined floor to ceiling with catalogues raisonné 3 of the major artists of his and Sharon’s collection as well as an assemblage of scholarly works on art and history. No noise from the street reached us in this cave, illuminated by a few desk lights bouncing off the colorful spines of books. I had often furtively imagined the pleasures one might indulge in if locked by mistake in this library with nothing to do but read and look.
For all that, it was a simple room of modest size with none of the pretensions of a millionaire’s library on display. It was a room in which Barc and I had scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes before heading out to some BART meeting or other; where we had pored over books documenting different states of Rembrandt prints