Robert Elton Brooker (July 18, 1905 - May 17, 2001) was an American business executive at Sears, Roebuck & Co.,

Whirlpool Corporation The Whirlpool Corporation is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, headquartered in Benton Charter Township, Michigan, United States. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of approximately $21 billion, ...

, and

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

, and recipient of the 1972

Henry Laurence Gantt Medal The Henry Laurence Gantt Medal was established in 1929 by the American Management Association and the Management section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for "distinguished achievement in management and service to the community" in h ...

.Lester Robert Bittel, Muriel Albers Bittel (1978), ''Encyclopedia of professional management .'' p. 456 Brooker was born in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

to Robert E Brooker and Isadora Brooker. He obtained his university degree at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

. He started his career in industry at Southern California Edison Co. from 1928 to 1934, and from 1934 to 1944 he worked at the

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheele ...

. In 1944 he started at Sears, Roebuck & Co., where he became vice-president. From 1958 to 1961 he was president of the

. In 1961 he joined

as president until 1966. He served another four years as chair, and from 1970 to at least 1974 he was chair of the executive committee. In 1972 he received the

Personal life

Robert Elton Brooker was born in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, the son of Robert E Brooker and Isadora Brooker. His father was a Cleveland baker. He earned his B.A. in civil engineering from the

in 1927. After college Brooker spent six years working for the power company

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of ap ...

. At the age of 95, Brooker died in Longwood, Florida on May 17, 2001, survived by his wife Sarah Burton Harrison Brooker and two children.

Whirlpool Corporation

Leaving Southern California Edison, Brooker worked for ten years at

running all the Firestone Stores in the western states. In 1944 he was recruited by

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

, where he worked under Robert E. Wood, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who was then the company's president. Brooker rose through the ranks, becoming head of manufacturing, a member of Sears' board of directors, and, in 1958, president of the newly formed

. At the 1959

American National Exhibition The American National Exhibition (July 25 to Sept. 4, 1959) was an exhibition of American art, fashion, cars, capitalism, model homes and futuristic kitchens that attracted 3 million visitors to its Sokolniki Park, Moscow venue during its six-wee ...

in Moscow, Brooker supervised the Whirlpool kitchen, the exhibit that prompted the

Kitchen Debate The Kitchen Debate (russian: Кухонные дебаты, translit=Kukhonnye debaty) was a series of impromptu exchanges through interpreters between U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, then 46, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nikita ...

between then-Vice President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and Soviet Premier

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

. At Whirlpool, Brooker applied the systems of General Wood, developing long-term relationships with suppliers and treating people fairly.

Montgomery Ward

In 1961 then-president John Barr hired Robert Brooker to lead

as president in its turnaround. Brooker brought with him a number of key new management people, including Edward Donnell, former manager of Sears' Los Angeles stores. Ward's new management team achieved the turnaround, reducing the number of suppliers from 15,000 to 7,000 and the number of brands being carried from 168 to 16. Ward's private brands were given 95 percent of the volume compared with 40 percent in 1960. The results of these changes were lower handling costs and higher quality standards. Buying was centralized but store operations were decentralized, under a new territory system modeled after Sears. In 1966, Ed Donnell was named President of Montgomery Ward. Brooker continued as chairmen and chief executive officer until the mid-1970s. In 1968 as Brooker helped engineer a friendly merger with the Container Corporation of America; the new company was named MARCOR. In 1974, Mobile Oil bought MARCOR."Mobil Corporation"
''

Encyclopedia Britannica An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articl ...

'', Retrieved on 8 December 2017.

Bettering Communities

Under Brooker's leadership at Montgomery Ward the Ward's store managers became more involved in their community's affairs. Brooker realized he had to apply the methods he used in business leadership to getting people who represented Montgomery Ward to be more involved in their own communities. Brooker once said, "It's sound economic sense to preserve an environment in which we all do our fair share for our community. It's the greatest product in the world to sell." When Montgomery Ward's headquarters needed new space, the company needed to decide if it would move to a safer location, as Sears had already announced, or to stay put. Brooker decided the company would remain and work with its neighborhood to better the environment. Brooker making the commitment to invest in its neighborhood helped clear up one of the more explosive areas in Chicago.

Honors

In 1972 Robert Elton Brooker received the

for distinguished achievement in management and service to the community.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooker, Robert Elton 1905 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople University of Southern California alumni Businesspeople from Cleveland Henry Laurence Gantt Medal recipients Engineers from Ohio 20th-century American engineers