Ashley Furniture

Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. is a furniture manufacturing corporation headquartered in Arcadia, Wisconsin. The company is owned by father and son team Ron & Todd Wanek. Ashley Furniture manufactures & deals out home furniture products all through North America.
The Ashley Companies (Ashley Casegoods, Ashley Upholstery, and Millennium) present bedroom, dining room, & home office furniture. It is the biggest furniture producer and best selling brand of home furniture in North America. It licenses its name to more than 300 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and Japan. It maintains a manufacturing facility in Whitehall, Wisconsin.
 

History -
Carlyle Weinberger founded Ashley Furniture in Chicago in 1945 as a sales operation. Specializing in wooden occasional furniture, Ashley marketed goods made by local companies. Later the company opened a branch in Goshen, Indiana. In 1970, Ashley spends in the Wisconsin-based Arcadia Furniture, founded by Ron Wanek, who had begun his career in a furniture factory owned by Eugene Vogel. When Wanek moved to Arcadia to release his own factory he took with him Eugene Vogel's son, Chuck. The two began doing production work for Ashley Furniture. Even though Arcadia ongoing out as a small production plant for Ashley's lines in 1976, Wanek & group of investors bought out Weinberger, taking control of Ashley Furniture. At first the 2 companies kept their divide identities, with Arcadia focusing on production and Ashley on sales.
By 1982, the merged company's annual sales achieved $12 M and it had moved its corporate headquarters from Chicago to Arcadia. By the mid-1980s, Ashley presented a line of roughly 350 different furniture products, and had turned its design and manufacturing left from "heirloom pieces" toward products intended at middle-income buyers. The company's growing network included wholesalers such as Levitz Furniture and mass-retailers such as Sears, Kmart, and Montgomery Ward, in adding to smaller retailers. Sales had risen to more than $44 M by 1985.
In 1994 Ashley acquired upholstery manufacturer Sklar-Pepplar, and by the late 1990s the company was operating assembly and distribution plants in Seattle, Washington; Pomona, California; New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Orlando, Florida. Gambling that motion furniture was a strong increase area, Ashley acquired Gentry Furniture, of Ripley, Mississippi in 1999. That same year the company also branched out into retailing, licensing Ashley Furniture HomeStores to independent dealers. The chain grew in its first year to approximately 40 stores.
By 2000, Ashley Furniture Industries employed more public in Arcadia than the town's population. The plant in Arcadia had grown from 35,000 sq. ft. in 1970 to 1.5 million sq. ft. Today the company maintains plants across the United States & functions several factories in Pacific Rim countries. Ron Wanek is still co-owner of the company with title of Chairman of the Board. Wanek's son, Todd, is at present co-owner and CEO. Wanek's daughter, Shari Wagner,is the Vice President of Exports. The company has received offers to take the company public, but its owners favor to keep it under local control.

Millennium Line -
In 1986, when Wanek and his designers determined that a new style of furniture would better serve the market, Ashley introduced its “Millennium” line, which had a polyurethane finish that gave the wood furniture a luster. The company formed very shiny black furniture in its occasional and bedroom lines, and began adding other colors, such as emerald green. The Millennium line remains vital part of Ashley’s business.

Ashley Furniture Home Store -
Ashley Furniture HomeStore is a chain of independently owned and operated furniture stores licensed to sell Ashley Furniture products exclusively, including mattresses and accessories. As of September 19, 2008, there were 371 Ashley Furniture HomeStores operating worldwide.

Memorial Park -
As part of Ron Wanek's philanthropy, he has designed and built Memorial Park in Arcadia, Wisconsin, with contributions from Ashley Furniture. The park is dedicated to the soldiers who have served in wars throughout the history of the United States. The walkway in the park serves as a time line, beginning at the founding of the United States & happening into the future. A monument is located for each war at its place in time.

Customer relations -
Ashley Furniture Industries is a Better Business Bureau credited industry, and has received an A+ rating from that organization.
 

Furniture Design Resources -