HIGH POINT, N.C. – The Future Leaders Award given by the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame Foundation will now be named the Paul Broyhill Future Leaders Award, and has been underwritten by a gift from the Broyhill Family Foundation.  

“The Paul Broyhill Award will be named after one of the industry’s leading families and a company that under his leadership focused on executive training and perhaps produced more leaders for our industry than any other single company,” said Karen McNeill Pond, CEO of the Hall of Fame. “The standards set by the Broyhill family through three generations – James Edgar Broyhill, Paul Hunt Broyhill and now his son, M. Hunt Broyhill, will forever be preserved as giants that greatly influenced our industry.”

J.E. Broyhill and his son, Paul Broyhill, were inducted separately into the Hall of Fame for the significant contributions that each made to the furniture industry. James Edgar Broyhill was born into a farming family in 1892. After serving in the US Army, he worked with his brother in the logging industry, then bought a struggling furniture operation in 1926.  Despite the Great Depression, J.E. grew the company to employ more than 1,000 employees.

His son, Paul, was just two years old when his father started the business.  From an early age, he worked in the plants and in the office.  After a stint in the U.S. Army and graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill, he worked alongside his father, ultimately becoming CEO.  Paul and his brother-in-law, Bill Stevens, company vice-president, developed “Broyhill U,” an internal sales training and management program.

A marketing genius and an innovator, Paul made Broyhill Furniture a household name.  Under his direction, the company grew to 6-million square feet. of manufacturing space and employed more than 7,000 people.  He was one of the first to offer an employee pension plan.  “Rather than just building plants, I like to think I built people,” Paul Broyhill said.

“Because of his tremendous innovations and leadership initiatives, the creation of the Paul Broyhill Future Leaders Award will be a reminder of the impressive impact that the Broyhill family has had on the development of leaders in our industry,” said McNeill Pond.

As the cornerstone of the Hall of Fame Leadership Initiative, the Paul Broyhill Future Leaders Award will be given annually to five emerging leaders that are selected on a points-based evaluation of the candidate’s leadership, potential for personal growth, communications skills, and their commitment to the industry. In addition to the award, recipients will receive a framed Certificate of Achievement signed by Hunt Broyhill, the published “Oral History of Paul Hunt Broyhill,” and an invitation to dinner with five other Future Leaders and five inducted members of the Hall of Fame.  They also will be made members of the Leaders Circle of the Hall of Fame, and invited to its activities.

The American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., is an industry-wide, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded to preserve its history, to celebrate exceptional individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the U.S. home furnishings industry, and to inspire a new class of innovation and leadership.