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September 3, 2004/Elul 17 5763, Vol. 55, No. 50
Family furnishes 50-year tradition
RAEANNE MARSH
Special to Jewish News
Goodmans Office Furnishings recently changed its name to Goodmans Interior Structures to better reflect its service to con- temporary office needs, but it's still a family business - now into the third generation.
The company was founded in 1954 by Edward and Anna Goodman, who had moved to Phoenix the previous year for its famous "dry climate" on the urgent advice of Edward's physician. Their son Murray, then entering high school, remembers driving out here in a truck filled with residential furniture from the family's store in Philadelphia. The switch to office furniture came about through a fluke: Unable at first to find a job, Edward arranged with a watermelon grower in Phoenix to deliver his produce "back East," filling the truck for the return trip with used office furniture purchased from his wife's uncle in Washington, D.C.
In the early 1960s, just as Edward was ready to retire from business, "Phoenix started to grow and it seemed like a good place to be," says Murray, who initially took over the business with his brother, Allan.
No "dynasty" was planned, but Murray and Dottie's older son, Scott, was on track to join the family business upon graduation from college. However, while completing his studies in industrial design at Arizona State University he entered a toy-designing contest sponsored by Mattel Toy Company - and won. Mattel offered him a job. "Follow your dream," Murray told him. Says Dottie, "He needed to hear it was OK because he felt he'd be disappointing his dad if he did not join the company."
Unexpectedly, their second son, Adam, decided to come into the business in the early 1990s and developed G2 as a separate operation.
Recently taking over leadership as president of Goodmans, Adam has spearheaded the company's development of the new concept: flexible and integrated office design. The Goodmans' new showroom is part display and part working office, showing off exciting innovations in workspace design for the whole office environment: from raised floors that contain modular electrical system, data cabling and air conditioning to rearrangeable full-height walls and, of course, office furnishings.
To Dottie, one of the most gratifying aspects of the family business is the way father and son work together. "Their offices are always open to each other's," she notes, adding that it "validates my kvelling" when other employees also remark on their mutually supportive relationship. Strong relationships seem to embrace all employees with the sense of family and many have been with the Good-mans more than 20 years.
Murray credits his parents for being good role models in running a business together, an example he and Dottie seem to be passing along to their son. "My father is my business role model and my life role model," says Adam. "And Mother has such a fun personality; I love to see her energy and sense of fun become a large part of the culture of the company."
Other family traditions seems to be strong as well: Edward was involved in the development of Hillel at Arizona State University and with the Greater Phoenix Jewish Free Loan Association, Murray is a past president of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Phoenix, now The Valley of The Sun Jewish Community Center. Adam now sits on the board of directors of the JCC.
Goodmans Interior Structures is located at 1400 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. Call 602-263-1110.
G2 Office Furniture Market is located at 841 E. Jefferson St., Phoenix. Call 602-254-6474.
Raeanne Marsh is a free-lance writer based in Phoenix.
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