Dirk Jan "D.J." DePree (July 31, 1891 – December 10, 1990) was an American furniture designer, and a founding participant and furniture business leader involved in the companies that would become the brand and manufacturer, Herman Miller, under whose company presidency that name was taken—from a participating early investor, his father-in ...

D.J. De Pree is a most singular person. Today at 87, his clear eyes reveal a man of style and simplicity with a still rare and unjaded measure of life and its meaning. By D.J.’s disarming, self-effacing account, he and the business organization he created have been blessed by a succession of providential events.

This is the story of a Christian business leader who proved by example that a highly successful business could be built on the principles of his faith. Between 1923 and 1961 Dirk Jan (D. J.) De Pree fashioned the Herman Miller Company into a highly profitable leader of …

Dec 2, 2018 · D. J. DePree was the founder and longtime head of Herman Miller Inc., an office-furniture manufacturing concern noted for its design leadership and labor relations methods. Dirk Jan DePree spent his life in nearby Zeeland, Michigan, 20 miles southwest of Grand Rapids on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where he was born July 31, 1891.

DJ De pree was the founder and operator Of Herman Miller Furniture until Stepping down from CEO in 1961. Dirk Jan (D. J.) De Pree was born in Zeeland, Michigan in 1891. His father was a tinsmith who was active in local politics. His grandparents were Dutch Calvinists who had immigrated to Zeeland in the late 19th...

Dec 13, 1990 · D. J. DePree, the founder and longtime head of Herman Miller Inc., an office-furniture manufacturing concern noted for its design leadership and labor relations methods, died Monday...

Have you ever heard the name D.J. De Pree? Chances are you have not. Yet D.J. De Pree was the founder of Herman Miller. In 1923, De Pree organized several investors who purchased the Michigan Star Furniture Company. One of these investors was Herman Miller, De Pree’s father-in-law and a business leader of integrity.

Learn more about De Pree Designer-driven: Founder D.J. De Pree (back, middle) with director of design George Nelson (seated, middle) and the cadre of designers they hired: Robert Propst, Alexander Girard, and Ray and Charles Eames.

De Pree becomes the first president of the Herman Miller Furniture Company, which continues to manufacture reproductions of traditional home furniture. 1927 D.J. De Pree founds the Herman Miller Clock Company.

In 1923 D.J. DePree joined with his father-in-law, Herman Miller, and other investors to purchase the Star Furniture Company of Zeeland, Michigan (the company was later named for Miller). By the 1930s DePree had become interested in how contemporary design could improve home and …