The chiefs who came here — a grouped record

1917 – 2021

Most of Fort Wayne's great companies were, at one time or another, run by men who arrived to run them: Frank Morgan Steers was the Magnavox Company's first president, from 1917, under founders Edwin S. Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who had invented the moving-coil loudspeaker at their Napa laboratory. Addison E. Holton founded the Essex Wire Corporation in Detroit in 1930 — a Detroit founding, stated as such — retired in 1962 and died in 1980 aged eighty-three; Walter F. Probst succeeded him as president in 1958, and the dating of the company's headquarters move to Fort Wayne — 1954, about 1966, and the "world headquarters" investment of 1982–84 are all in the record — stands unresolved in the Business section. William L. Moellering was president and general manager of the Fort Wayne Home Telephone and Telegraph Company by 1917; he was no telephone founder — the firm's own 1919 history says "the original Moellering started the business in 1853; his son… took hold in 1886," speaking of the Moellering construction house. Charles Buesching, himself a German immigrant, was president of the Lincoln National Bank when he commissioned its headquarters tower, opened 16 November 1930 — at 312 feet the tallest building in Indiana until 1962. In the present era, John Hopkins became Sweetwater's chief executive in July 2021, succeeding its founder, Chuck Surack, who remains chairman; Surack's own profile stands in the People sections. Frank Freimann and Ian Rolland, the era's two defining chiefs, hold their own entries above.

Sources:

1. Businesses — "Magnavox" (Steers's first presidency), "Essex Wire Corporation" (Holton's founding and retirement, Probst's 1958 succession, the headquarters-move datings), "Home Telephone and Telegraph Company" (Moellering's presidency; the firm's 1919 Moellering history), "German American National Bank — Lincoln National Bank and Trust" (Buesching and the tower), "Sweetwater Sound" (the 2021 Hopkins succession).