Milliken & Company — a Spartanburg-based floor covering, performance materials, and specialty
chemicals and fabrics manufacturer — has created a new brand identity to communicate the company’s
ongoing commitment to innovation, excellence, leadership and ethics.
A new corporate logo, based on the signature of the late Roger Milliken — who became the
company’s president upon the death of his father in 1947, served as chairman and CEO from 1983
until 2006, and continued as chairman from 2006 until his death at the age of 95 in December 2010 —
is meant to symbolize the company’s vibrancy and creativity, as well as a commitment to innovation
delivered with a fresh approach to support sustainability and enhance quality of life as well as
health and safety.
Dr. Joe Salley, Milliken’s president and CEO, introduced the brand initiative to the
company’s associates during a special meeting held April 26 in the arboretum on the Milliken
corporate campus.
“Thirty years ago, Mr. Roger Milliken led this company on an initiative to achieve
world-class Quality. It was without question, the largest, most transformative effort in the
history of our company. His quality Initiative became the foundation of the company’s success which
continues to serve us well,” Salley said.
“Today, together, we are formally breaking ground on a new phase of building the company’s
future, an effort that continues to be grounded in quality and the values that we share, an effort
that is even more ambitious than achieving world-class Quality … and that is to achieve
world-class innovation,” he continued, going on to read the company’s Touchstone Document, which
describes “a compelling sense of purpose … animated by a spirit of creative play.”
In introducing the new logo, Salley stated that it “represents not only the community of
innovators at Milliken, but also the man who built the company into what it is today. Our new logo
is inspired from his personal signature, and is simple, playful, bold, and signals our commitment
to excellence, leadership, and ethics.”
The event also included a groundbreaking ceremony in the Roger Milliken garden and the
planting of a Nuttall Oak tree — the first of many to be planted as a memorial to Milliken. In
connection with the ceremony, associates had been invited to bring soil from their homes to add to
the planting mix.
April 26, 2011
