John Henry Patterson (NCR owner)
| John Henry Patterson | |
|---|---|
John H. Patterson
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| Born | December 13, 1844 |
| Died | May 7, 1922 (aged 77) |
| Resting place | Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio |
| Residence | Oakwood, Ohio |
| Alma mater | Miami University, Dartmouth College |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Founder of National Cash Register Company, led recovery effort after the Great Dayton Flood |
| Awards | John Scott Medal (1901) |
John Henry Patterson (December 13, 1844 – May 7, 1922) was an industrialist and founder of the National Cash Register Company. He was a businessperson and salesperson.
John Henry Patterson was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1844. He spent his childhood working on the family farm and in his father's sawmills. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1867 and went to work as a canal toll collector until 1870. That year, he began managing the Southern Ohio Coal and Iron Company. He became an investor in the National Manufacturing Company in 1882, buying it out with his brother by 1884 to form National Cash Register Company.
In 1893 he constructed the first "daylight factory" buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that let in light and could be opened to let in fresh air as well. This was in an era when sweatshops were still in operation elsewhere. He hired John Charles Olmsted to landscape the grounds of the National Cash Register Company campus in Dayton, with spacious lawns and landscaping with colorful plantings. Olmsted also had a hand in designing the residential community surrounding the plant (South Park) as well as a park system for the City of Dayton.
Based on a 16-page handbook written by his brother-in-law, Patterson established the world's first sales training school on the grounds of the NCR factory campus (at Sugar Camp in Dayton, Ohio). He also coined a phrase for his service division which, until about the time the company was bought by AT&T, hung on the wall of every service department in the company. The phrase was, "We Cannot Afford To Have A Single Dissatisfied Customer".
Patterson was famous for firing Thomas Watson Sr, who went on to become General Manager, then President, of CTR, later renamed IBM. So many prominent businessmen were trained and fired by Patterson that some business historians regarded experience at NCR as the rough equivalent of an MBA degree. Patterson was also famous for firing many people on rather trivial grounds, for example, if they could not tell him why the flags happened to be flying that day or for not riding a horse properly. He was a manager and the story went, That he told the man "If you can't manage the horse you can't manage my men".
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