GARDNER WHITE TO LEAD DETROIT PARADE
Company celebrates its third year as top sponsor of America's Thanksgiving Parade
Rachel Stewart has many reasons to be thankful and excited about Thursday’s edition of America’s Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner White.
She’s the president of Gardner White.
So, she and her husband, Brian Stewart will be cruising the parade in a cool car ahead of Gardner White’s new float “It All Starts Here!,” which celebrates all of the things that Detroit has done first.
And she will be surrounded by employees who love her and the company her grandfather built. So much so in fact, Gardner White was recently awarded Furniture Today’s “2022 Best Places to Work.”
“This extraordinary recognition belongs to each of Gardner White’s 1,000 team members,” said Stewart. “It
is an achievement we all share in, one that has been made possible by every person’s hard work, dedication, commitment, and passion. We’ve been family-owned and operated for four generations, making a personal and professional investment in our team members who are like family to us.”
Her employees agree. “I’m so proud to be one of Gardner White’s lifers,” said Lynn Sebastian, vice-president of sales, who was only 19 years old when started working for the company more than 20 years ago.
Jeff Damone of Chesterfield Township concurred.
“I love working here. Rachel is the best. She’s so likable and genuine. You would never know she’s the CEO,” said Damone, who will be one of more than 50 employees who are so excited about the parade they’ve planned something special that’s never been seen in the parade before.
“It’s going to be great,” said Damone.
Looking at the portrait of Stewart’s maternal grandfather, Irwin Kahn, hanging on the wall in the company’s corporate offices in Warren, one could only imagine how excited he would be for the Stewart family including Rachel’s parents, Steve and Barb Tronstein. As other photos on the wall show historically, Gardner White was founded by Eugene Clinton White and John G. Gardner in 1912. Stewart’s grandfather bought the store in 1950 and put his genius in retail sales to work.
“He created a great sales culture. He really knew the market and his customers,” Stewart said, while looking at the old photos on the wall.
During the Depression and long after that, Gardner White was among the trusted furniture stores, providing people from all walks of life something nice for their home. An old receipt shows one customer was able to purchase a new sofa for $15. He had to make a few $2 payments after that but what he bought was well built and likely served his family for years to come.
The parade, being the best place to work and the retailer’s growth in the past three decades, under the leadership of Stewart and her parents, Steve and Barb?
“He would have been so proud,” said Stewart, who grew up around the family business but with a master of science degree from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan started her career with the U.S. Department of Energy. For four years, she worked with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu on a solar energy research and development initiative to make the cost of installing solar energy as affordable as traditional forms of electricity. She also worked on a project in New York but eventually just followed her heart back to Detroit to join the family business.
Stewart said it’s a great culture to work in.
As president she has also worked to keep the deep and longstanding partnerships Gardner White (GW) has developed with local groups and organizations, guided by one principle: to improve lives through furniture.
• GW partners with Volunteers of American to outfit homes for veterans.
• GW has a longstanding partnership supporting Salvation Army.
• GW partners with the Red Cross on the biggest blood drives in the region outside of the UM-MSU blood battle that has saved more than 35,000 lives.
After the death of furniture baron Archie Van Elslander and the bankruptcy of Art Van Furniture, Gardner White also stepped up to help America’s Thanksgiving Parade just as Van Elslander did more than 30 years ago.
“We were just as surprised as everyone else about what happened,” Stewart said, but there was never any question as to what they needed to do. “It was implied. I mean who else is going to fill the void? This is our home. We live in it. Work in it. We support it.”
And so, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic in 2020, the company signed on as the lead sponsor of Detroit’s annual parade and have been supporters of the holiday tradition ever since. This year, in fact, Stewart’s mom will be walking the parade route along with other members of the Distinguished Clown Corps.
“We are incredibly grateful to Gardner White for their generosity to our community and presenting sponsorship of America’s Thanksgiving Parade,” Tony Michaels, president and CEO of the Parade Company said, in a news release. “Gardner White is a very special part of the Parade Company family and we have a remarkable partnership of celebrating everything great about our city and state.”
Designed by the Parade company artists, Gardner White’s new float features a number of elements celebrating “firsts” in Detroit’s history including the first tri-colored traffic light, first urban freeway, first mile of paved road in America, first police dispatch radio and first Vincent Van Gogh painting to enter a museum collection. The float also celebrates Detroit as the birthplace of techno music and Gardner White.
The first year Gardner White sponsored the parade, COVID prevented it from being an in-person event.
Last year it rained but it did not dampen the spirit of those who came to see it including Stewart’s daughters who waved to her from the curb, blowing kisses and hollering out love just as she did when she was a child.
“That was the best part for me,” Stewart said. “You hear about people lining the street to see a parade but to see it all — so many people coming together, smiling, waving — from the parade route? It’s just so cool.”