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Illness Forces Proud's Retirement At Goodyear's; Three-Member Executive Committee To Run Store

Illness Forces Proud's Retirement At Goodyear's; Three-Member Executive Committee To Run Store image
Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
June
Year
1961
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Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
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Illness Forces Proud’s Retirement At Goodyear’s; Three-Member Executive Committee To Run Store

Paul L. Proud, 72, president and manager of Goodyear’s Department Store since 1916i, has retired because of ill health.
 

The announcement was made today by Proud’s son, Paul L. Proud, jr., a local attorney, who has been named executive vice - president of Goodyear’s by its board of directors.
 

In this newly-created position, the younger Proud has over-all management power of the store, but he said that management will be vested in a three-man executive committee.

 

It is made up of Eckhardt E. Schroen, Goodyear’s vice-president; Philip Pargh, general merchandise manager, and Paul Proud, jr.

 

Pargh has just been named to the new position, coming here from Long Island, New York, to take up the post of buying and merchandising items for Goodyear’s, which had gross sales this past year in excess of $1,000,000. The firm employs about 100 persons.
 

Proud said Schroen will be in charge of store operations, pointing out that he will act in an advisory capacity while continuing private law practice.

Pargh announced that Goodyear’s will undertake some “surprising, delightful physical changes,” declining to announce all the changes at this time. "We want to keep them as surprises" he said.

 

But Pargh did say that Good-year’s will soon begin catering to teen-age girls, University coeds and young matrons.

Goodyear's is generally a woman’s apparel store, but has a number of other departments, including dry goods and house-wares, besides draperies.

 

“We plan to put in what we feel Ann Arbor wants,” Pargh said, adding that one goal is to make the firm a “very friendly family store with quality merchandise at fair prices."

 

Pargh and his wife, Felice, daughter of Paul Proud, sr., are former Ann Arbor residents who moved to the East Coast in 1941. Pargh, who has 28 years of experience in the wholesale apparel field, formerly owned and operated a 28-room hotel at Westhampton Beach, Long Island.

 

Mrs. Pargh, a former Goodyear’s buyer, may return to the firm as an adviser on fashions.

 

Pargh said he is sympathetic to the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce’s movement to revitalize the downtown under a master plan. “Goodyear’s will co-operate 100 per cent with whatever the merchants do for the good of the downtown,” Pargh said. Both he and his wife will take up residence in Ann Arbor.

 

Paul Proud, sr., has been associated with Goodyear’s since 1912, rising by 1916 to 40 per cent owner of the firm, when he was named president of it.

He had been periodically ill during the past several years. The illness has been diagnosed as cancer.