{"id":61966,"date":"2012-08-17T16:51:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/community\/?p=2880"},"modified":"2012-08-17T16:51:01","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T16:51:01","slug":"furniture-and-philanthropy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2012\/08\/17\/furniture-and-philanthropy\/","title":{"rendered":"Furniture and Philanthropy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Larry Klaben<\/p><\/div>\n

The sofas and recliners he sells may be perfect for relaxing on a Sunday afternoon, but Larry Klaben rarely rests. Since taking over a hometown furniture store in Dayton 14 years ago, Klaben has never stopped working to grow Morris Home Furnishings and turn the company into a household name.<\/p>\n

Klaben caught the entrepreneurial bug at a young age, working at his family\u2019s camera shop. He started his own freelance photography business as a student at Wright State University, where he earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in urban studies. \u201cBack in the \u201970s, Wright State was a smaller school, but I was proud of the education I received,\u201d said Klaben. \u201cThe Urban Studies program combined my interests in liberal arts, political science, and socioeconomics. I studied what makes communities survive
\nand grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduation, Klaben moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for two congressmen and earned a Master of Public Administration from American University. He also started his own company\u2014Congressional Computer Management Services, Inc.\u2014which provided technology and data services to political offices\u00a0and nonprofits.<\/p>\n

After selling his company to an international software firm, Klaben moved back to Dayton in 1986 to help his father-in-law, Bert Leiberman, improve technology for his family business, Morris Furniture Company, Inc. Klaben was named the company\u2019s vice president of operations and soon found that he excelled in the job.\u00a0Just three years later, Klaben was named Ohio Furniture Retailer of the Year by the Ohio Furniture Representatives Association.<\/p>\n

Klaben purchased the company outright in 1998, becoming its CEO and president. To help him guide the Morris Furniture Company, Inc., he formed a committee made up of Morris executives and individuals outside the business. Klaben and\u00a0his team redesigned the store layout into 10 unique showrooms organized to match customer needs. They worked to stay current with industry trends and the ever-evolving tastes\u00a0of consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe embrace change,\u201d said Klaben. \u201cIt goes back to having a broad liberal arts education. When you study history, politics, and sociology, you see that you can\u2019t survive if you don\u2019t adapt to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Klaben\u2019s major goals was to grow the company\u2019s market share in the Dayton region. To do so, the executive committee developed an aggressive plan for expanding to multiple locations. Growing from a single store in Dayton, Morris now has 13 locations throughout the Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati markets. That includes nine Ashley Furniture HomeStores and four Morris Home Furnishings stores. There are also four Morris Big TV Stores within the Morris showrooms and Better Sleep Shops in all 13 Morris and Ashley locations.<\/p>\n

Yet the biggest castle in Klaben\u2019s kingdom is Morris\u2019 new retail complex in Cincinnati. Opened in 2011, the Morris Home Center combines five distinct stores in an almost mall-like format. Customers can visit a Morris Home Furnishings, an Ashley Furniture HomeStore, and a Better Sleep Shop, along with a Morris Back Room clearance outlet and the company\u2019s first Morris Big TV Store. While each store has its own entrance, the building\u2019s interior floor plan is open to encourage customers to shop all five Morris brands. The concept has been so successful that the company opened a second Morris Home Center in Florence, Kentucky, this past June.<\/p>\n

With annual sales of more than $75 million, Morris Furniture Company, Inc., has grown into one of the largest privately owned furniture companies in the state. The industry is taking notice. Morris was named the National Home Furnishings Association\u2019s Retailer of the Year\u00a0in 2008 and was included in Furniture Today<\/em>\u2019s Top 100 list of furniture stores in 2010. Supermodel\/actress Cindy Crawford recently chose Morris to be the exclusive retailer of her furniture line in Ohio.<\/p>\n

Klaben attributes the success to his staff. The company has an intensive hiring process, looking for employees that will fit well with the Morris culture and values. Once someone is hired, Klaben said, the company supports that employee with training and generous benefits. As a result, staff turnover is low and morale is high. \u201cWe\u2019ve developed one of the best teams in the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a tremendous number of people who have been here for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another focus for Klaben is using his company to serve the Dayton region. Morris supports a number of charitable causes including Dayton Children\u2019s Medical Center, The Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio, AIDS Resource Center Ohio, Culture Works, The Human Race Theatre Company, and Daybreak emergency shelter for runaway and homeless youth. Morris also works closely with Secret Smiles, a nonprofit organization serving needy children in the Dayton area. To date, the program has helped over 2,200 children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell my staff that we\u2019re fortunate that our customers continue to buy from us,\u201d said Klaben. \u201cWe need to support them in turn, and giving back to the communities they live in is a way to do that.\u201d Klaben focuses the company\u2019s charity efforts on education, health, and the arts\u2014all areas that affect children and families.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Klaben has concentrated much of his humanitarian energy on his alma mater. In June, he continued his nine-year commitment on the university\u2019s Board of Trustees, becoming its chair for 2012\u201313. He has sat on both the Wright State Foundation Board and the university\u2019s Liberal Arts Community Advisory Board. He chaired the campus-wide corporate appeal in 2005. Both Klaben and his company have been major supporters of Wright State\u2019s annual ArtsGala. \u201cThe great thing about\u00a0 Larry\u2019s support is that he not only gives money, he convinces others to give money and<\/em> he talks about the event to everyone he meets,\u201d said Linda Caron, interim deam of the College of the Liberal Arts. \u201cHis unfailing advocacy has really helped raise the profile of ArtsGala and the arts at Wright State in general.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sofas and recliners he sells may be perfect for relaxing on a Sunday afternoon, but Larry Klaben rarely rests. Since taking over a hometown furniture store in Dayton 14 years ago, Klaben has never stopped working to grow Morris … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":60266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4827,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}