Royal Little (March 1, 1896 – January 10, 1989) was an American business executive, founder and chair of
Textron
Textron Inc. is an American industrial Conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in Providence, Rhode Island. Textron's subsidiaries include Arctic Cat, Bell Textron, Kautex, Textron Aviation (which itself includes the Beechcraft and Cessna b ...
, and is considered to be the father of
conglomerates.
Little graduated from
Noble & Greenough School in 1915 and from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1919, despite having been on academic probation. He soon began working for various textile firms, before founding Special Yarns Corporation in 1923 on $10,000 () in borrowed money. He changed the name to Textron in 1944. Little spent much of his time acquiring other textile firms, and was successful in his efforts. By 1947, the company reported sales of $125 million (equivalent to $ billion in ).
By the 1950s, realizing that the textile industry was not consistently viable, Little began to acquire firms in other industries, beginning the modern conglomerate. Throughout the decade, Textron acquired assets in pneumatic tools,
antennas, plastics,
plywood
Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...
,
aluminum
Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...
,
helicopters
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...
,
chain saws, and leather, among others.
Little retired in 1960, at which time Textron was one of the top 100 companies in the US. Other corporations, following Textron's model, attempted to diversify their holdings in industry. In his retirement, he wrote ''How to Lose $100,000,000 and Other Valuable Advice'' in 1979.
Little died at his home in the Bahamas in 1989. At his request, there was no funeral.
Royal Little was the nephew of
Arthur Dehon Little, the founder of Boston's
Arthur D. Little management consulting firm.
Further reading
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References
* http://www.answers.com/topic/royal-little
* http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/343942/Royal-Little
{{DEFAULTSORT:Little, Royal
1896 births
1989 deaths
Harvard University alumni
Noble and Greenough School alumni
People from Wakefield, Massachusetts