Milliken & Co.’s secret to 150 years in textile business: innovation

At least nine textile companies, each with annual sales of more than $1 billion, called the United States home a decade ago.

Today, there is only one – Spartanburg-based Milliken & Co., now celebrating its 150th anniversary.

As trade policies of the 1990s allowed for an influx of cheap imports, American textile giants either closed up shop or shifted production to places like Mexico, China and India.

Spartanburg, Union and Cherokee counties were at the epicenter of the decline. Mills that once hummed with textile machines and hundreds of employees went dark. The surrounding mill villages deteriorated as workers, most of whom had a multigenerational connection to their community, moved to find work.

“Not long ago, this company faced a tremendous challenge,” Joe Salley, president and CEO of Milliken & Co., said an email response to questions. “Most textile companies were choosing to either go overseas or go out of business. We found a way to not only survive, but to thrive.”

Strong roots

In 1854, a 20-year-old entrepreneur named Seth Milliken opened a country store in Minot, Maine. After five years, he moved to Portland to go into business with his brother-in-law, Dan Trune. It was there that they formed a partnership with William Deering, a dry goods store owner who became wealthy selling wool uniforms to the Union Army during the Civil War.

Milliken & Co. officially got its start in 1865, when the two men founded Deering Milliken Co., a wholesaler of wool fabrics and dry goods. Seth Milliken moved the company to New York in 1868. A year later, William Deering went to Chicago to found Deering Harvester Co., now Navistar.

In 1884, Deering Milliken invested in the Pacolet Mill with Capt. John H. Montgomery, John B. Cleveland, Joseph Walker and Charles Edwards Fleming. Seth Milliken died in 1920. He was succeeded by his son, Gerrish Milliken.

In 1915, Gerrish Milliken and his wife, Agnes Gayley Milliken, had a son, Roger Milliken. The younger Milliken attended Yale University, where he studied French history.

At age 26, he was named director of Deering Milliken.

An era of innovation

In 1945, Milliken & Co. began a new era in focus.

Roger Milliken organized a team of researchers called the Deering Milliken Research Trust in a little house near Clemson. The group later became the Deering Milliken Research Corp. By 1958, the research organization had more than 130 patents and moved to a new specially designed home just north of the city of Spartanburg now known as the Roger Milliken Center, the company’s corporate headquarters.

Some of the group’s early breakthroughs included Agilon, a stretch nylon for women’s stockings, Belfast self-ironing cotton fabrics and Visa, a washable polyester fabric.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the company continued to innovate. The invention of the first polymer-bound chemical became the genesis for the Chemical Division and its versatile polymer-bound chemistry technology platform.

The company entered the carpet market in 1968, acquiring Callaway Mills. It soon wed ink-jet technology and created tufted carpet printing to create specialized carpet and rug designs.

“Innovation has been at the heart of Milliken’s success since 1865,” Salley said. “From our early beginnings as a general store, we have transformed from an investor to manufacturer to innovator in operations and R&D. That enables the development of products and services that can change how we think about flooring, chemicals, textiles and performance materials.”

Leadership and quality

Roger Milliken became the company’s president in 1947, after his father died suddenly.

In 1959, he decided to move the company’s headquarters to Spartanburg to be closer to its plants. The company maintained a marketing and sales office in New York City.

Milliken helped found the Spartanburg Day School in 1957. He was instrumental in starting the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in 1962 and served as its chairman until his death on Dec. 30, 2010.

In 1976, the company was renamed Milliken & Co.

During the 1980s, with his company continuing to grow and innovate, Milliken decided to shift the company’s focus again from innovation to quality.

“It was innovation, innovation, acquisition, acquisition, and then by the ’80s we said, ‘Wait a minute, how do we think about building for the future?’” Milliken & Co. spokeswoman Barbara Haaksma said on a recent tour of the company’s headquarters, adding that Milliken pioneered the quality movement.

In 1984, Milliken helped found the Crafted with Pride in U.S.A. Council, which pioneered an educational campaign to inform American consumers about the importance of domestic manufacturing.

Milliken’s focus on excellence within his own company’s operating chain led to the formation of what is today known as the Milliken Performance System.

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 10:14 PM with the headline "Milliken & Co.’s secret to 150 years in textile business: innovation."