John W. Norris Jr., who helped build his family’s Iowa furnace business into one of the most successful and recognizable companies in the world, died Jan. 21 in Maine. He was 87.
Norris spent his life working for what would become Lennox International, which is now based in Richardson, Texas.
The company started with humble beginnings in Marshalltown when his grandfather, D.W. Norris, editor and publisher of the local newspaper, purchased the company from David Lennox in 1904 for a reported $57,000. Today, the company is valued at over $16 billion, according to Stock Analysis.
It was Norris, then president of the company, who made the decision to move the headquarters of Lennox from Marshalltown to the Dallas suburb of Richardson in 1978.
In a 1991 interview with Texas Monthly, Norris joked about the Texas weather, showing off his Iowa-grown sense of humor. “They tell you the average temperature is fifty-six degrees, but they don’t tell you it’s plus or minus fifty degrees,” Norris said at the time.