LIBERTY TOWNSHIP, Ohio – George Gasser, one of three brothers who started Gasser Chair Co. in 1946, pledged to never hire family.
But nearly 80 years later, two of his sons, their children, grandchildren and other Gassers work at the Liberty business, which also has operations in Youngstown.
Family plays an important role in the business and its culture, but the work keeps individual family members involved.
“You get intrigued with the customer’s problems – trying to come up with solutions – and it just grows with you,” says Greg Gasser, director of product development. “And you just try and think of new things. I think quite a few of us in here each have our own patents, or multiple patents, for things that we‘ve come across and developed and collaborated on. And it’s just those projects just keep you going.”
Brothers Mark and Gary Gasser, company president/CEO and board chairman, respectively, are sons of George, who founded the company with his two brothers, Louis and Roger.
Mark and Gary’s younger brother, Louis, worked at the family business but died two years ago. Mark’s daughter, Alison, is Gasser’s sustainability manager. Greg, Bryan and Matthew Gasser are Gary’s sons. Bryan is catalog engineer, and Matthew works in the plant. Louis’s children work there too.
In Mark and Gary’s generation, there were eight children, and most worked in the family business at one point.
Gasser Chair builds custom chairs for the hospitality and gaming industries and serves customers across the world. But the business started as an aluminum fabricator, then transitioned into aluminum-frame dinette sets for the residential market.
“And then our father got the idea that, well, hotels and restaurants – that’s a lot more chairs,” Gary says.
Mark remembers going as a child to the barn, the early iteration of the company, with his father. He enjoyed making things and later got intrigued with the business model, with meeting customers and seeing the company’s processes from beginning to end.
“And I realized at some point how unique we were in the fact that we did everything in-house,” Mark Gasser says. “We’re very vertically integrated, whereas a lot of our competitors will buy components and they’ll do the upholstery and assembly, but they’re not involved in the origination of the product.”
But Gasser does it all.
Gary earned a degree in architectural interior design from the University of Cincinnati and worked for an architect-designer in Columbus, working on restaurant accounts. At the time, the bulk of Gasser’s business was with the restaurant industry and George, Gary and Mark’s father, believed it would be a good idea if someone could talk to restaurant designers in their language.
Bryan, the catalog engineer, worked at the company while earning his degree in mechanical engineering at Youngstown State University.
“It was nice being able to apply the theories that you learn in college and being able to see it come to fruition out on a plant floor, whether it’s in metal working or woodworking or even upholstery,” he says.
As he got more involved, he also earned a master’s in manufacturing and then his MBA. Alison worked in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., in different industries before returning two years ago to work at Gasser “For me, it was coming here to be a part of what had been created – and the whole family have a lot to do with that – but specifically, Uncle Louie was battling cancer, and I wanted to be here for the family,” Alison explains.
But none felt pressured to work in the business.
“I think, like you talk to anybody here, not just family, but the style of work we do, because it is project based, because it’s custom, it’s always different. It’s always exciting,” Alison offers.
Kevin Buck, director of business development and not a Gasser family member, says the work is about problem solving. “You talk to the customers, and they have these pain points – they have these obstacles they’re trying to overcome – and helping them solve that and deliver is just so rewarding.”
Pictured: Gasser Chair, a 79-year-old company with operations straddling Mahoning and Trumbull counties, is family owned. Brothers Gary Gasser, board chairman, front row, and Mark Gasser, president/CEO, are sons of one of the founders. Back row, Bryan Gasser, Alison Gasser and Greg Gasser, are the catalog engineer, sustainability manager and director of product development, respectively. Bryan and Greg are Gary’s sons and Mark is Alison’s father.