When Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos started Amway 50 years ago, their offices were in an old garage in Ada, Michigan.
It wasn’t long before they outgrew that 2,400 square foot space and began building what today is a mile-long office and manufacturing complex.
Now, the Grand Rapids Public Museum is telling the story of Amway in a space about as big as that original garage.
“Amway: 50 Years of Helping People Live Better Lives” shares Amway’s history and a glimpse at its future through words, pictures, interactive displays, and artifacts. This is the museum’s first Amway exhibit, and includes many items that have never been on display before.
Like the Amway Flyer wagon we sold in the ’60s. Or a recreation of the bomb shelter Amway marketed during the Cold War era.
The exhibit will be open to the public through November 2010.
It’s a long way from Kiev to Ada, Michigan. But once Ukranian journalists got here for a press visit and the conversation about the global economy got going, distance didn’t seem to matter.
Following their August visit, Delo, a daily business newspaper, printed an interview with Doug DeVos on how distributors have – and always will – remain central to our business. Monthly magazine Tvoye Zdorovye, translated as “Your Health,” talked with Doug as part of a larger story on business ethics, noting that we were environmentally-focused before it became a “fashionable marketing term.” And finally, in an S Toboy article on American women’s beauty secrets, our Artistry and Nutrilite brands were mentioned.
We’ve got great stories to tell. Our press visits are just one way we do it.
On November 9, 1959, Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel launched their latest business venture here in Ada, Michigan. Before founding Amway, Jay and Rich had tried their hand at businesses ranging from a drive-in restaurant to a flying school to an import business.
But the enterprise that had legs was Amway.
Since Amway’s founding, we’ve grown from a small band of entrepreneurs in the states to more than three million business owners in more than 80 countries and territories. We offer health and beauty brands known and loved around the world. And while Jay and Rich started with a skeleton crew to support their new business, today we boast 14,000 employees worldwide.
There’s no big celebration planned at our world headquarters in Ada today. We’ve been celebrating all year long with our distributors all around the world.
We’re spending Amway’s 50th anniversary just as Rich and Jay spent their first day on the job 50 years ago - at work, helping distributors succeed through their Amway businesses.
It’s only natural that we have baseball on our minds this week.
But every week, we’re thinking Twitter. We’ve seen people use it to find each other during disasters, raise millions, and spread urgent news around the globe.
We Tweet to engage with people interested in our business opportunity and product brands — our Amway Business Owners, media, customers, and sometimes, critics.
You’ll find enough Amway handles on Twitter to load the bases at several ballparks, but here’s our official line-up:
Today Orlando community leaders and Orlando Magic officials ”topped off” the Amway Center currently under construction in Orlando, Florida.
By hoisting the final beam in place, workers placed the roof on what some are already calling the greenest arena in the country and the first NBA facility to be LEED certified when it opens in late 2010.
Today, it’s raising the roof. Next fall the Amway Center will raise the bar as one of the nation’s premier sports and entertainment facilities and green public buildings.
Direct selling is a multi-billion dollar industry involving tens of millions of people worldwide.
How big and how many? Here’s a snapshot of direct selling, by the numbers:
$113 billion - global retail sales through direct sellers in U.S. dollars, according to the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations. $29.6 billion - retail sales through direct sellers last year in the U.S., the world’s biggest market for direct selling. 66 million - the number of direct selling reps worldwide - 15.1 million in the U.S. alone. 68 - direct selling companies around the world with more than $100 million in sales.
58 - the average age of the top 10 direct selling companies worldwide (none of the top 10 have been in business fewer than 25 years; Amway, the world’s second largest direct seller, turns 50 this year.)
42 - direct selling companies selling more than $100 million annually that are based in the U.S. 11 - companies that have sales of $1 billion or more.
It all adds up to a thriving global industry and opportunity for millions worldwide.
If you want to give someone a head start in learning anything, you start them young.
That’s the thinking behind offering local high school students a world-class business school experience through a new partnership between Amway and the Grand Rapids Public Schools. This week, we announced our support of a new high school curriculum choice at Ottawa Hills High School focusing on business, leadership and entrepreneurship. Students will learn management, finance, and other business skills through a focused curriculum, internships, lecture series, and real world experience.
Some of that experience will come from Amway volunteers who share their expertise with students. They include Amway’s chief marketing officer, Candace Matthews, who announced the program to students earlier this week.
This is one of four public-private partnerships that pair business leaders with Grand Rapids high schools called “Centers of Innovation.” And it caps 20 years of support for the Grand Rapids Public Schools by Amway and its employees.
More importantly, it’s a head start in business that’ll give these students a leg up as future employees, managers, and in some cases, CEOs.
If you’re already a fan of our Artistry skin care or Nutrilite vitamin and mineral supplement brands, you can make that relationship official.
That’s because there are official pages for our flagship Artistry and Nutrilite brands on Facebook. Become a fan and get the most up-to-date news on these global brands.
Our aviation team operates quietly, capably and professionally. They do their jobs without a lot of attention or fanfare.
But that’s about to change, as Amway aviation moves from operating under radar to getting major recognition as one of two inaugural winners of the Gulfstream Outstanding Flight Award given for flights involving superior airmanship.
Amway was honored for transporting more than 1,100 people using 22 aircraft in a single day as part of the company’s 50th anniversary events in May.
We’re in good company. The other honoree is the U.S. Air Force’s 310th airlift squadron. The two teams were cited for performing significant real-world business and special-mission aviation operations using Gulfstream aircraft and as representing the “very best” flight operations in the world.
And the “very best” can’t operate under radar for very long.
When Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos started Amway 50 years ago, their offices were in an old garage in Ada, Michigan. 
You’ll find enough Amway handles on Twitter to load the bases at several ballparks, but here’s our official line-up:
