Due to my interests in business systems and philosophies, I am continually amazed by the vision and character of our founder John J. Eagan. He was a most remarkable person. AMERICAN employees held him in such high regard that they commissioned a statue in his honor. For years, the statue has been in a somewhat secluded, garden-style setting. Recently, however, we moved it to a more visible location near our main entrance and in front of our Administration Building. We thought it was appropriate that more people see the statue because, 75 years after his death, Mr. Eagan’s impact on AMERICAN still is a major part of our corporate culture. Mr. Eagan was an investor in AMERICAN when it was founded in 1905 and served as the company’s first president. He was an astute industrialist who was decades ahead of social and business developments. At the same time, he was a man of unshakable religious convictions who fervently believed the Golden Rule could and should be applied in business settings. To put things in perspective: Dirty and dangerous working conditions, low wages, and exhaustingly long hours were prevalent throughout the nation’s manufacturing industry early this century. Many workers were poverty-stricken, lived in small, unsanitary shacks, and forever struggled to care for their families. Mr. Eagan condemned these conditions and worked tirelessly to change them. He believed that employers owed workers decent compensation for an honest day’s work. In a business conference speech he once said, "We have no right to rob the man who works honestly and faithfully of a good support for himself and family in order to enrich the stockholders or even to serve the public ... In your own corporation, your own company, how many of your men are living in places you would not live in?" At AMERICAN, he instituted innovations that were unheard of at the time: showers, lockers, and towel service for all plant workers, higher wages, profit sharing, recreational programs, a 24-hour employee cafeteria, employee housing, medical services, group insurance, and a system that ensured fair representation of all employees. Asked more than once if applying such practices to business was practical, Mr. Eagan replied: "The question isn’t whether it’s practical. The question is whether it’s right." Mr. Eagan was the perfect example of an American capitalist who supported democracy in every way imaginable. He differed from many of his peers, however, because he strongly believed that democracy could exist in this country only if workers were truly given opportunities to share in the American Dream. His initiatives reflected deep compassion for employees, but he was anything but a pushover. He was a no-nonsense boss who expected the best effort from employees. "It is the extra effort that brings the extra compensation," he once said. Mr. Eagan had equally strong feelings about applying the Golden Rule to the treatment of customers. He wanted the most efficient, results-driven working environment where employees had responsibilities, opportunities, and rewards. That, he figured, would encourage the company to focus on producing the highest-quality products, selling them at a fair price; making deliveries on or before the assigned time; and creating innovative new products based on customer needs and wants. He even went so far as stating that customers should be "beneficiaries" of the company’s products. Several well-known companies in the United States have incorporated the same kind of customer-oriented environment in response to overwhelming foreign and domestic competition. But Mr. Eagan was way ahead of all this. He had proactively instituted similar "innovations" at AMERICAN when the company was in its infancy. He was light years ahead of his time, and not just in business. He was well-known for his support of education, improved racial relations, and for his efforts to eliminate the debilitating effects of prostitution and alcohol abuse. With this statue now in a more visible location, perhaps we at AMERICAN will think more often of Mr. Eagan. I think that would please him. I also think it would greatly please him to know that, for the third time, AMERICAN was recently named as one of the "Best 100 Companies to Work For In America" (January 1999 issue of Fortune magazine). Most of all, however, I think he would be most proud to see that the employee and customer programs he instituted at AMERICAN proved to be not only practical, but also the right thing to do. Van L. Richey President & Chief Executive Officer

AMERICAN President and CEO Van Richey, left, and AMERICAN Board Member Bill Eagan, son of John Eagan, pose at the statue erected by AMERICAN employees in honor of the company’s founder.