LEEROWAN CO-FOUNDER TO SPEAK AT CHAMBER BANQUET

Desmond Lee, co-founder of LeeRowan, will be the guest speaker at the Jackson Chamber of Commerce and Jackson Industrial Development Co. industrial appreciation banquet on Monday at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

LeeRowan was founded in 1939 by Lee and John V. Rowan.

The company's first products were sold to Sears, Roebuck and Co. and JCPenney. The trouser-creasers manufactured by LeeRowan were replaced by arming wires for bombs during World War II, due to the inability to obtain steel.

After the war, the firm experimented with new products that eventually led to storage systems by LeeRowan.

Today, the firm not only makes hangers, but a complete line of ventilated storage products as well as an assortment of traditional closet accessories.

Since l964, when LeeRowan began with a mere 25 employees and a 49,000-square-foot building, the firm has had more than a dozen expansions. In 1993, Lee sold his LeeRowan Co. to the manufacturing conglomerate Newell Co., putting aside his career as owner of a major manufacturing company. He sold the wire-coat-hanger industry for $85 million and since then has given away more than $35 million of it.

Rubbermaid Closet Organization Products is the new name of the company, and it employs more than 800 people at its 900,000-square-foot facility.

Lee, a noted philanthropist, understands that educational and cultural institutions do not operate without philanthropy.

The following accomplishments have been made possible from Lee's generosity: He retired the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's debt and helped found the Community Music School; he's made substantial donations to the Missouri Botanical Garden, the St. Louis Zoo and the St. Louis Art Museum; and he's endowed 16 professorships at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University.

Tied to the money he gives are incentives toward cooperation among the city's major institutions with the stipulation that they involve themselves positively in the community.

It is said that through his generous gift to the University of Missouri at St. Louis, the future of disabled children is being changed. Lee made the announcement of the donation at the St. Louis Variety Club's 34th annual dinner With the Stars, where he was named Man of the Year.

The gift was used toward a professorship, partnered with the Variety Club, and focuses on strengthening teaching, research and collaborative community programs that promote education and provide services and resources to children with disabilities.

Says Blanche M. Touhill, chancellor of UMSL, "This professorship, in partnership with the St. Louis Variety Club, will address the children's education, socialization and transition to independent and productive members of our community."

The following is a list of the national, community and civic awards, Lee has received: National Society of Fund Raising Executives presented him with the St. Louis Philanthropist of the Year for 1995; University of Missouri at St. Louis in 1995 presented him with an honorary degree: Doctorate of Humane Letters; Herbert Hoovers Boys and Girls Club in 1995 presented him with the Richard H. Amberg Award; the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1995 presented him with the Brotherhood/Sisterhood Award.

He received the St. Louis Symphony Green Room Recognition Award in 1995. Other 1995 awards given him were the Beaux Arts Council Award by the St. Louis Museum, the Henry Shaw Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden, A World of Difference and the Community Service Award for Meritorious Achievement.

In 1996 he was presented the first St. Louis Zoo Award from the St. Louis Zoo and Marlin Perkins Society and the St. Louis Man of the Year from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Des Lee Collaboration Vision, in conjunction with the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University, has provided 27 endowed professors, 19 bearing the name: Des Lee and involving five other area colleges and universities and more than 100-member organizations.

In 1997, the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis, presented him with the Excellence in Philanthropy Award. He also received that year, the Right Arm of St. Louis Award, the Outstanding Philanthropist National Award, the Washington University Distinguished Alumni Award, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, Commission on Urban Agenda, granted him an honorarium.

Other honors were a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Washington University, the Modern Patriot Award from the Sons of the Revolution, the Missouri Arts Award, and WORTH Magazine ranked him 98 in its 100 Most Generous Americans.

Washington University named him to its Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 and the St. Louis Bar Foundation gave him the Community Leadership Award in 1999.

Last year, the Variety Club of St. Louis named him Man of the Year, the American Jewish Committee honored him with its Human Relations Award, the University of Missouri System gave him the Presidential Citation for Alumni Service, and he received the Honorary Optimist Award from Optimist International-Missouri He also was inducted into the University City High School Hall of Fame and given the Washington University Robert S. Brookings Award.

This year, he has been given the local Martin Luther King Philanthropy Award and the United Nations Association of St. Louis' Mary T. Hall Humanitarian Award.