Don Heeringa was an intrapreneur. He helped turn Trendway into a prosperous office furniture company. But he didn’t start it; nor was it his idea to work there.
Justin “Jud” Busscher (1918-1970), a former employee at Chris-Craft, Holland Furniture, Modern Partitions, and Uniline, launched Trendway in 1968. His first office was in the back of the Mode-ODay dress shop at 2 W. Eighth St. His second office was inside a house trailer on Quincy Street.
His first product was the Trendwall, a movable floor-to-ceiling privacy wall made of gypsum that provided greater fire and sound resistance. Irwin Deur, a plant technician, sold his boss 10 acres of property (at $1,000 per acre) at Quincy Street near 136th Avenue for the company’s first factory. From the beginning, Trendway was a community: half of its employees attended Jud’s church.
But the company languished after he died.
George Heeringa, Don’s father, bought the company, even though George knew nothing about office partitions. However, he did know Gerrard (“Gerry”) Haworth from Hope Church. At the time, Gerry was transforming Modern Partitions into Haworth.