John Henry Patterson (NCR owner)
Encyclopedia
John Henry Patterson was an industrialist
and founder of the National Cash Register Company
. He was a businessperson and salesperson.
, he worked on his father's farm, collected tolls on the Miami and Erie Canal
, and ran a coal yard with his two brothers. As the general manager of the Southern Coal and iron Company at Coalton, Ohio, he ran the company store. The books showed that the store should have made a profit of $12,000 a year, it was actually losing $6,000 per year due to dishonest clerks. After buying two of "Riddy's Incorruptible cashier" machines form the National manufacturing Company, Patterson and his brother bought the company in 1884, renaming it "National Cash Register, Inc."
s were still in operation elsewhere. He hired John Charles Olmsted
to landscape the grounds of the National Cash Register Company campus in Dayton, with spacious lawns and landscaping with colorful plantings. Olmsted also had a hand in designing the residential community surrounding the plant (South Park
) as well as a park system for the City of Dayton.
Based on a 16-page handbook written by his brother-in-law, Patterson established the world's first sales training school on the grounds of the NCR factory campus (at Sugar Camp in Dayton, Ohio
). He also coined a phrase for his service division which, until about the time the company was bought by AT&T, hung on the wall of every service department in the company. The phrase was, "We Cannot Afford To Have A Single Dissatisfied Customer".
, who went on to become General Manager, then President, of CTR, later renamed IBM . Patterson was famous for firing many people on rather trivial grounds, for example, if they couldn't tell him why the flags happened to be flying that day or for not riding a horse properly.
, later overturned by appeal; both were later pardoned by President Woodrow Wilson
as a result of their leadership roles in dealing with the Great Dayton Flood
of 1913. During that disaster, John H. Patterson led the recovery efforts. NCR employees built nearly 300 flat-bottomed boats and Patterson organized rescue teams to save the thousands of people stranded on roofs and the upper stories of buildings. He turned the NCR factory on Stewart Street into an emergency shelter providing food and lodging, and he organized local doctors and nurses to provide medical care. Patterson's vision for a managed watershed for the Great Miami River
resulted in the development of the Miami Conservancy District
, one of the first major flood control districts in the United States.
, Oxford, Ohio
and graduated from Darthmouth College in 1867. He was something of a health fanatic, and adopted one regimen after another, most of which were required of his executives and employees. While at Miami, Patterson was a member of Beta Theta Pi
.
Patterson lived in his Swiss chalet estate "The Far Hills" in Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio
. Patterson loved the Adirondacks and built his summer estate on Beaver Lake in New York
. His family built two other estates on the lake. All three estates still exist, two as church camps, one as private bed and breakfast.
John Patterson is also renowned as a case book example of an individual who demonstrated a clear need for total control of everything around him. Following is an excerpt from a 2009 article in Portfolio.com, declaring Patterson one of the worst (#9) CEO's of all time:
Rumors of abusive behavior in his personal life were rife in tabloids of the time, and thus may be exaggerated. One such claim implied he frequently choked women in his personal life, this is now recognized as a common trait in people who have serious control issues. The book The Two-Edged Sword by William H. Hampton and Virginia S. Burnham details Patterson's abusive behavior, suggests a possible mental illness, classified Patterson as a paranoid. There are several other books and psych texts which reference Patterson's behavior and cite him as suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness of some kind. It is perhaps worthy to note that several industrialists of his time were very publicly insane and abusive, leading some to conclude that such abusive and insane behavior may be of some advantage to CEOs of the time.
. He left no great fortune because of his expenditures on social programs at his company, and because he believed that "shrouds have no pockets." He left ownership of the company to his son Frederick Beck Patterson who took it public in 1925. $55 million in stock was offered to the public in what was the largest business public offering
up to that time.
Mr. Patterson was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1979.
Patterson's methods influenced United States business for a generation. In the period 1910-1930 it was estimated that one-sixth of United States business executives were former NCR executives.
Business magnate
A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a capitalist, czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is an informal term used to refer to an entrepreneur who has reached prominence and derived a notable amount of wealth from a particular industry .-Etymology:The word magnate itself...
and founder of the National Cash Register Company
NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation is an American technology company specializing in kiosk products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check...
. He was a businessperson and salesperson.
Early years
Patterson was born in 1844 on the family farm near Dayton, Ohio. After graduating from Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, he worked on his father's farm, collected tolls on the Miami and Erie Canal
Miami and Erie Canal
The Miami and Erie Canal was a canal that connected the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio with Lake Erie in Toledo, Ohio. Construction on the canal began in 1825 and was completed in 1845. It consisted of 19 aqueducts, three guard locks, and 103 canal locks. Each lock measured by and they...
, and ran a coal yard with his two brothers. As the general manager of the Southern Coal and iron Company at Coalton, Ohio, he ran the company store. The books showed that the store should have made a profit of $12,000 a year, it was actually losing $6,000 per year due to dishonest clerks. After buying two of "Riddy's Incorruptible cashier" machines form the National manufacturing Company, Patterson and his brother bought the company in 1884, renaming it "National Cash Register, Inc."
Pioneering business practices
In 1893 he constructed the first "daylight factory" buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that let in light and could be opened to let in fresh air as well. This was in an era when sweatshopSweatshop
Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...
s were still in operation elsewhere. He hired John Charles Olmsted
John Charles Olmsted
John Charles Olmsted , the nephew and adopted son of Frederick Law Olmsted, was an American landscape architect. With his brother, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., he founded Olmsted Brothers, a landscape design firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. The firm is famous for designing many urban parks,...
to landscape the grounds of the National Cash Register Company campus in Dayton, with spacious lawns and landscaping with colorful plantings. Olmsted also had a hand in designing the residential community surrounding the plant (South Park
South Park, Dayton, Ohio
South Park is a 24-block area of more than 700 structures primarily dating from the 1880s to the early twentieth century. It is located south of downtown Dayton, Ohio, just north of the University of Dayton campus and Woodland Cemetery, and east of Miami Valley Hospital...
) as well as a park system for the City of Dayton.
Based on a 16-page handbook written by his brother-in-law, Patterson established the world's first sales training school on the grounds of the NCR factory campus (at Sugar Camp in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
). He also coined a phrase for his service division which, until about the time the company was bought by AT&T, hung on the wall of every service department in the company. The phrase was, "We Cannot Afford To Have A Single Dissatisfied Customer".
NCR and IBM
Patterson was famous for hiring and later firing Thomas Watson SrThomas J. Watson
Thomas John Watson, Sr. was president of International Business Machines , who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956...
, who went on to become General Manager, then President, of CTR, later renamed IBM . Patterson was famous for firing many people on rather trivial grounds, for example, if they couldn't tell him why the flags happened to be flying that day or for not riding a horse properly.
Great Dayton Flood
Both Patterson and Watson were sentenced to one year imprisonment for unfair business practicesUnfair business practices
Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers and are prohibited by law in many countries. For instance, in the European Union, each member state must regulate unfair business practices in...
, later overturned by appeal; both were later pardoned by President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
as a result of their leadership roles in dealing with the Great Dayton Flood
Great Dayton Flood
The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 flooded Dayton, Ohio, and the surrounding area with water from the Great Miami River, causing the greatest natural disaster in Ohio history...
of 1913. During that disaster, John H. Patterson led the recovery efforts. NCR employees built nearly 300 flat-bottomed boats and Patterson organized rescue teams to save the thousands of people stranded on roofs and the upper stories of buildings. He turned the NCR factory on Stewart Street into an emergency shelter providing food and lodging, and he organized local doctors and nurses to provide medical care. Patterson's vision for a managed watershed for the Great Miami River
Great Miami River
The Great Miami River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately long, in southwestern Ohio in the United States...
resulted in the development of the Miami Conservancy District
Miami Conservancy District
The Miami Conservancy District is a river management agency operating in Southwest Ohio to control flooding of the Great Miami River and its tributaries. It was organized in 1914 following the catastrophic Great Dayton Flood of the Great Miami River in March 1913, which hit Dayton, Ohio...
, one of the first major flood control districts in the United States.
Personal life
Patterson attended Miami UniversityMiami University
Miami University is a coeducational public research university located in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and the second oldest university in Ohio, founded four years after Ohio University. In its 2012 edition, U.S...
, Oxford, Ohio
Oxford, Ohio
Oxford is a city in northwestern Butler County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern portion of the state. It lies in Oxford Township, originally called the College Township. The population was 21,943 at the 2000 census. This college town was founded as a home for Miami University. Oxford...
and graduated from Darthmouth College in 1867. He was something of a health fanatic, and adopted one regimen after another, most of which were required of his executives and employees. While at Miami, Patterson was a member of Beta Theta Pi
Beta Theta Pi
Beta Theta Pi , often just called Beta, is a social collegiate fraternity that was founded in 1839 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, USA, where it is part of the Miami Triad which includes Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Chi. It has over 138 active chapters and colonies in the United States and Canada...
.
Patterson lived in his Swiss chalet estate "The Far Hills" in Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio
Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio
Oakwood is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. The population was 9,202 at the 2010 census. Oakwood is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was incorporated in 1908...
. Patterson loved the Adirondacks and built his summer estate on Beaver Lake in New York
Beaver Lake Nature Center
Beaver Lake Nature Center is natural area located west of Baldwinsville, New York. The Nature Center is an Onondaga County Parks facility and is meant to expose visitors to a variety of outdoor experiences....
. His family built two other estates on the lake. All three estates still exist, two as church camps, one as private bed and breakfast.
John Patterson is also renowned as a case book example of an individual who demonstrated a clear need for total control of everything around him. Following is an excerpt from a 2009 article in Portfolio.com, declaring Patterson one of the worst (#9) CEO's of all time:
The tyrannical Patterson liked to fire and then rehire executives to break their self-esteem. He banned “harmful” foods—including bread and butter—from company premises and had employees weighed and measured every six months. In 1913, he and 29 NCR officials were convicted of various antitrust violations, including the use of “knockout men” to intimidate store owners and keep them from buying from NCR’s competitors. (The conviction was overturned a year later.) Patterson may be best known for firing Thomas Watson, who went on to build IBM.
Rumors of abusive behavior in his personal life were rife in tabloids of the time, and thus may be exaggerated. One such claim implied he frequently choked women in his personal life, this is now recognized as a common trait in people who have serious control issues. The book The Two-Edged Sword by William H. Hampton and Virginia S. Burnham details Patterson's abusive behavior, suggests a possible mental illness, classified Patterson as a paranoid. There are several other books and psych texts which reference Patterson's behavior and cite him as suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness of some kind. It is perhaps worthy to note that several industrialists of his time were very publicly insane and abusive, leading some to conclude that such abusive and insane behavior may be of some advantage to CEOs of the time.
Death and legacy
Patterson died on May 7, 1922, two days after reviewing plans with General Billy Mitchell to develop a center for aviation research in Dayton. He is interred in the Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, OhioWoodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio
Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum , located at 118 Woodland Avenue, Dayton, Ohio, is one of the oldest "garden" cemeteries in the United States....
. He left no great fortune because of his expenditures on social programs at his company, and because he believed that "shrouds have no pockets." He left ownership of the company to his son Frederick Beck Patterson who took it public in 1925. $55 million in stock was offered to the public in what was the largest business public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
up to that time.
Mr. Patterson was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1979.
Patterson's methods influenced United States business for a generation. In the period 1910-1930 it was estimated that one-sixth of United States business executives were former NCR executives.
External links
- Portfolio article listing the worst CEOs of all time based on staff research
- Patterson Sales Strategy from the website of Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
- Mission and History from the website of The Dayton Foundation
- Patterson homestead from the website of Montgomery County, OhioMontgomery County, OhioMontgomery County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. The population was 535,153 in the 2010 Census. It was named in honor of Richard Montgomery, an American Revolutionary War general killed in 1775 while attempting to capture Quebec City, Canada. The county seat is Dayton...
's official historical organization - Patterson Family Papers from the Wright State UniversityWright State UniversityWright State University is a comprehensive public university with strong doctoral, research, and undergraduate programs, rated among the 260 Best National Universities listed in the annual "America's Best Colleges" rankings by U.S. News and World Report. Wright State is located in Fairborn, Ohio,...
Libraries website - The Man on the Job at Dayton from Dayton History Books Online, a CityMaxCityMaxCityMax.com is an online website builder that includes an ecommerce shopping cart. It was launched in 1999 and is targeted to small business owners with little website design or programming experience.-Technology and Services:...
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