Wheels
You may not think of wheels when you think of Amway, but they figure prominently in our story.
Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos' first partnership was about wheels. Jay had some, Rich didn't. So Rich paid Jay a dime a week for a ride to school. Later ventures also included wheels — the wheels of the plane used for their flying school, the wheels customers drove to their drive-in restaurant, and the wheel of the boat they chartered to South America.
A new Grand Rapids Public Museum exhibit shows other wheels that helped transport the company from its West Michigan roots to become the global leader in direct selling it is today.
Amway: 50 Years of Helping People Live Better Lives is open through November 2010. The exhibit shows and tells Amway's story and how it grew, and includes artifacts like the Amway Flyer wagon sold in the 1960s, the Amway Showcase bus that brought home care solutions to people coast-to-coast, and today's Amway Global Mobile Brand Experiences. Some items have never before been on display.
Walking through the exhibit, you'll see that it's been quite a ride from an old garage to a mile-long manufacturing and office complex and from a business that started in the states and today brings opportunity to more than 80 countries and territories.
For museum hours and information, visit www.grmuseum.org.