CONTRIBUTED PHOTO John W. Norris Jr., the grandson of Lennox founder D.W. Norris who served as president, CEO and chairman of the board during a 46-year career with the company, died on Jan. 21 at the age of 87.

A longtime titan in the local business community who helped transform Lennox from a small family business to a global industrial powerhouse died surrounded by his loved ones on Jan. 21. John W. Norris Jr., the grandson of company founder D.W. Norris, was 87.

Born in Marshalltown on Feb. 10, 1936, Norris Jr. was eager to join the family business. He apprenticed on the maintenance crew at Lennox as a teenager before going on to further his education at Grinnell College for two years and then graduating from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

After that, Norris officially joined Lennox and worked his way up through various roles in nearly every department — he was elected as a director in 1966, appointed president in 1977 and then named president/CEO in 1980. He was elected chairman of the board in 1991, retiring as president/CEO in 2001 and as chairman of the board in 2006.

During his 46-year career, Norris led Lennox through significant achievements and milestones to set up its future success. He also spearheaded the relocation of the corporate headquarters from Marshalltown to Richardson, Texas in 1978, a difficult decision Norris’s son Bo, who grew up here and graduated from MHS before eventually settling in Maine, elaborated on during a recent interview with the T-R.

“Frankly, that move was tough. As we look back on it, you took about 200 of your kind of middle class, upper middle class citizens and their families in Marshalltown, and some people would say you ripped it out of our heart and moved to Texas. It was hard on our immediate family. We grew up there (and) we had all our friends there,” Bo said. “There were some tough reactions, but he knew that as wonderful as Marshalltown was, to be a world class company, they were gonna have a hell of a hard time attracting the talent they needed to move to small town Iowa, and that was his calculus.”

Despite his busy schedule, Bo remarked that John Jr. was always around and available as a dad, and he didn’t fully realize the scale of his father’s talents and abilities until he joined the board himself in 2000.

“I really got to see firsthand his management style, how he treated people, how he relied on teams, how he was kind of egoless, for lack of a better word. I never felt that he wanted to take credit for anything. It was always the teams he pulled together, and that was his style ever since I became involved in the company at the board level,” Bo said. “And that legacy is kind of amazing because it really is just embedded in how the company operates… It’s a company with selfless people. They wanna do the right thing. They’re proud of their heritage. They’re proud of their products, and you just kind of step back in this day and age and say ‘Here’s a group of people who are doing it the right way.'”

And even with his family name and pedigree, Bo said his father worked his way up through the company and refused to “throw his weight around” just because of who he was, working a number of jobs on his way to the top.

Under his leadership, Lennox became a publicly traded company in 1999 and cemented its status as a globally diversified industry leader. Norris Jr. launched Commercial HVAC and Commercial Refrigeration business divisions within Lennox.

“Dad knew that they had to go public. They had to raise the capital to grow, but he also knew that there was a really high risk of the family starting to splinter apart,” Bo said. “For my dad, keeping the family together and interested in the company was a big deal, and by God, he did it. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it.”

His focus on sustainability was ahead of its time, introducing the first high-efficiency condensing heating products. Norris created the iconic “Dave Lennox” character, whose likeness graces the box of every unit the company packages to this day.

Rich Thompson succeeded Norris as the chairman of the company and shared some of the lessons he learned, describing him as “an exceptional person” who was as comfortable on the factory floor as he was in the boardroom.

“I think I could probably capture him best by saying he’s the kind of business leader that we would all hope to be. He was just the ideal leader. He was ethical, humble, forceful, steady, a practical visionary, and he led Lennox as an ESG (environmental, social and governance) company before ESG was formulated,” Thompson said. “Lennox was the picture postcard of an ESG company even in his early days.”

Thompson added that Norris possessed “unmatched” communication skills and listened to everyone involved when making decisions, serving as both the face and the heart of Lennox.

“He set an excellent example of steadiness but brilliance. He definitely had strategic vision, and he would tailor those visions benefiting from the input of those around him at all levels — in other words, inputs from the board but not necessarily just the board,” he said. “He was a man of vision, and then he would lay in place the stepping stones to achieve that vision. And all along the way, he would communicate very carefully and very thoroughly with all the constituencies so that he had the support of those he needed to draw upon as he led Lennox toward its visions moving it from a Marshalltown company to a global enterprise.”

Current Lennox CEO Alok Maskara described Norris as a positive leader who positioned the company well for its current success with nearly 10,000 employees across its four plants, corporate headquarters and parts stores.

“John Norris Jr. was a great leader whose vision, passion, and positive culture built Lennox and still contributes to our everyday success. I was fortunate to meet Mr. Norris when I first joined Lennox. It was an inspirational moment as he had such an incredible impact on the trajectory of Lennox,” Maskara said. “He led the company through its IPO (NYSE: LII) and created the Commercial HVAC and refrigeration segments. His actions transformed the company. We would not be the Lennox we are today without the leadership of John Norris Jr.”

To this day, Bo still hears from Lennox employees who tell him what his father meant to them.

“It’s really cool. It’s humbling and it’s gratifying, and it gives me something to live up to,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable that a business guy that successful can stay that grounded and humble. That’s the theme, for sure.”