Word: gypsum
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...great charm, with a knack for making profit for his companies when all about were losing theirs. The son of a prosperous Michigan lumberman, Avery got his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1894. By 1905, at the age of 31, he was president of U.S. Gypsum. He built it into one of the biggest U.S. building-material suppliers, and, convinced in the late '20's that the U.S. economy was headed for a depression, so prepared U.S. Gypsum to weather it that the company was able to show a profit every year...
...midst of the desert of Texas, hit the headlines across the world in the '20s with "Oil, 10? a barrel, water $1," I drove across the trackless sand with tires deflated toward two men near a Dodge coupé with a broken axle and mired in gypsum sand up to the running boards. One was an unshaven, booted, leather-jacketed oilfield-lease hound named Allen; the other, Sir Henri Deterding, immaculately dressed in English tweeds, with a pipe and a diamond stud, and a diamond twice as large in a ring he wore. I said, "Sir Henri, this must...
...more bricks in less time. Edwin Booz's instinct was to concentrate on the big questions involving basic company strategy, new products, sales ideas. His first big break came in 1925, when Sewell Avery hired his firm, then in a one-room back office, to help streamline U.S. Gypsum. This led to a larger commission from Avery on how to reorganize Montgomery Ward during the Depression. In 1935, the firm's marketing-research side was strengthened by adding Partner Carl Hamilton...
...home starts, now a near record 1.300,000 a year. Overall construction is moving 12% ahead of last year, at an annual rate of $55 billion; builders expect it to rise to at least $57 billion in 1960. Says Chairman Melvin H. Baker of Buffalo's National Gypsum Co. (1958 sales: $163 million): "Seldom if ever has an industry looked forward to such bright prospects as does the construction industry. Despite all the talk of overcapacity, the U.S. today is actually greatly underequipped to meet the long-range challenges of more people, better living standards and new production techniques...
...Government-aided surveys turned up fabulous deposits of iron ore in Newfoundland's mainland territory of Labrador; one is now being mined, the other is scheduled to go into production in the 1960s. In Newfoundland and Labrador, surveyors uncovered promising finds of copper, lead and zinc, asbestos, fluorspar, gypsum and uranium. Perhaps even more significant was the exploration of sites on Labrador's Hamilton River that could develop as much hydroelectric power as Grand Coulee and Hoover Dam combined. Next step: to develop a market for this untapped storehouse of kilowatts...