Chairman of the Board and President La-Z-Boy Inc. (Deceased) – Monroe, Michigan
Mr. Knabusch started with the La-Z-Boy Chair Company in 1961, one year prior to his graduation from Cleary College where he earned his Business Administration degree in 1962. Working his way through the corporate ranks he was elected President in 1972. In 1985 he was named Chairman of the Board. During his term at La-Z-Boy, company sales increased from $52.7 million per year to $620 million in 1992. Listed on the NYSE since 1987, La-Z-Boy employs 8,000 people in 220 showcase shops and furniture galleries around the country including West Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and Canada along with 24 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. In addition to the La-Z-Boy brand of furniture products, the company also manufacturers lines of household and business furniture and accessories. They are also the first US furniture maker to stop using polyurethan foam processed with chlorofluorocarbons which are blamed for eroding the ozone layer. Outside of the office, Mr. Knabusch is active with the Boy Scouts of America, the Monroe Family YMCA, the Monroe Chamber of Commerce; he serves on the Mercy Memorial Hospital Board, the American Furniture Manufacturers Association and he is a Director of the Monroe Bank and Trust. “I am relying on campuses such as Northwood to produce upstanding leaders to take over where we left off for resounding global economy with America leading the way.”
