Herbert H. Thompson
President and C.E.O. of the country’s second largest glass container company, with sales of $1.5 billion a year, is Andrew Lewis High School’s graduate Herbert H. Thompson. Moving the company from a $200-million sales record in 1983 to the third largest at $700 million and by successive joint ventures with other companies, finally to its previous envious position. Thompson now heads the Ball-Foster Glass Container Co., L.L.C., headquartered in Muncie, Indiana.
Football, basketball, baseball, and the monogram club were his extra-curricular interests in high school. In 1951, Herb joined the U.S. Army, serving in the Korean War as Chief of the Survey Section, 204 th. Field Artillery Battalion. He continued his education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering in 1956. He has three children; Tim, Chris, and Kimberly Thompson Wheatley. His wife, Elaine, has two sons, Jody and Troy.
In 1956, Herb went to work for PPG Industries in Shelbyville, Indiana, as an Industrial Engineer trainee, rising to Manager of its fibre glass yarn and reinforcement plant at Lexington, North Carolina, and Plant Manager at Shelbyville. In 1973, he went with Foster-Forbes Glass Company, moving from Plant Manager in Marion, Indiana, to General Factories Manager over four plants and staff engineering groups, to President. When Saint Gobain, the largest glass company in the world, based in Paris, purchased Foster-Forbes and 58% of Ball Glass to from Ball-Foster Glass Container Company, Herbert H. Thompson became its President and Chief Executive Officer.
With 22 container manufacturing facilities in the United States alone to oversee, it is remarkable that Thompson found time for other commitments: President, YMCA; Vice President, Chamber of Commerce; Board of Directors of both a bank and a hospital; and a member of the Good Neighbor Council, the Community foundation, and the United Way.
Career accomplishments find Herb the Chairman and President of Heye-America, a West Germen-U.S. joint venture to manufacture glass forming machines shipped throughout the world. He is Chairman of two like joint ventures with U.S. glass works to produce glass containers for wine, liquor, and Tropicana juices. He is Trustee and past Chairman of the Glass Packaging Institute, a promotional organization of all glass manufacturers and suppliers in the United States. He also holds the same title for Retired Trust, which funds health and death benefits of all retired glass container hourly workers in the U.S.
In recognition of is outstanding career achievements, Herbert H. Thompson was among the charter members inducted into the Salem Alumni Hall of Fame established by the Salem Educational Foundation and Alumni Association in 1996.
