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Innovation Drives Family-Owned Auto Company's 100-Year Run

Innovation Drives Family-Owned Auto Company's 100-Year Run

After a century as one of the world’s leading makers of convertible tops, family-owned manufacturer Haartz Corp. produces materials founder John C. Haartz might not have been able to imagine, but the company’s essential principles haven’t changed much, to hear CEO Eric Haartz describe it.

“We’ve always had an inclination to innovate. Otherwise, you fossilize and die,” said Haartz, the third generation to run the Acton, MA-based company, which was founded in 1897 and began making convertible tops in 1922. “There’s been a consistent family willingness to adapt to what our customers need.”

Today, Haartz has operations in Detroit; Munich and Mannheim, Germany; Tokyo; Shanghai and Chongqing, China; Irapuato, Mexico; and Pune, India.

To read more, see the Detroit Free Press.

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