About Harry E. Figgie Jr.
HARRY FIGGIE grew up in 1930s Cleveland. He lost his father in 1940 at the age of sixteen, and five years later was fighting in General Patton’s Third Army with an infantry division in Europe. After coming home, he finished his last two years of undergraduate work with a Bachelor’s in metallurgical engineering. Next he received an MBA from Harvard as a member of the Class of 1949, which Larry Shames, in his 1974 book about the Class, called “the most wildly successful batch of MBAs to have shared a campus anywhere, ever.” Along the way, Harry also accumulated a law degree and a masters in industrial engineering by going to night school while working full time in sales and in manufacturing positions.
In Memoriam
Harry E. Figgie Jr.: October 28, 1923 – July 14, 2009
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Cleveland native and entrepreneur, Harry E. Figgie Jr., on the morning of July 14, 2009. He was 85.
Mr. Figgie is probably best known for his stewardship of Figgie International. In 1963 he took over the Automatic Sprinkler Corporation of America, a struggling $23 million sprinkler company, and in the next two decades turned it into a $1.3 billion diversified corporation, owner of such well known brands as Rawlings Sporting Goods, American LaFrance fire trucks, and Fred Perry Sportswear.