Cousins Matt Worthen, business unit manager, left, and Eric Worthen, president and CEO, hold a binding tree in front of a portrait of their grandfather, Frederic P. Worthen. (Photo by Christine Carignan)
Eric Worthen, president and CEO of Nashua-based Worthen Industries, keeps a memento in his office to remind him of the ways a family business must adapt over time.
It’s called a binding tree—a sample of colored bias bindings that were used in shoe mills around NH and Massachusetts. Worthen’s great-grandfather, who started the business, only offered bias bindings in black or white, to prioritize efficiency. But when Worthen’s grandfather took over the company, he knew customers wanted color.
“By color matching, my grandfather breathed new life into the business and allowed it to get into new markets,” Worthen says. Today, the binding tree “reminds me that if you don’t provide what the customers want, they won’t be with you for long.”
Being nimble and adaptable to meet customers’ needs has allowed Worthen Industries to succeed through four generations. Worthen’s great-grandfather founded the company, then called Farnsworth Inc., in 1930, providing bias bindings to the footwear industry. In 1954, Worthen’s grandfather, Frederic P. Worthen, purchased the business from his father-in-law, and helped expand the company into the paste and adhesive spaces through the acquisition of the Union Paste Company with roots dating back to 1866. Since then, Worthen’s father and three uncles have all worked in leadership at the company.
Today, Worthen Industries manufactures specialty adhesives, coatings, and other products for industries including medical, construction, food packaging, aerospace, and military. The company has four manufacturing plants—two in Nashua and one each in Virginia and Michigan—as well as warehouses in Asia, India, and South America. “We sell all over the world,” Worthen says.
Despite 160 years of history, the company has “a continuous growth mindset,” Worthen says. “We continually try to reinvest in the company. That allows us to grow and to be around as long as
we have.”
Many of Worthen Industries’ competitors are much larger companies, so Worthen Industries has succeeded by identifying “niche marketplaces where we can deliver value,” Worthen says.
Customizing solutions to customer needs requires close, ongoing relationships with clients. Many clients have been with Worthen since the 60s and 70s, when the company was still under his grandfather’s leadership. “We tend not to lose customers,” Worthen says.
To deliver a high level of expertise and service to such a wide swath of industries, Worthen’s uncle implemented a business unit concept in the mid-80s. Each business unit within the company is focused on a specific industry. The staff within that unit are “intimately focused” on the market they’re serving. This model “allows for the entrepreneurial spirit to maintain itself within our organization,” Worthen says. “We can be more nimble and react faster.”
Worthen Industries is still 100% family owned. Its board is comprised of four family members—one representing each limb of the family tree—and three outside advisors, Worthen says. The company offers internships to family members and tries to educate the wider family about what’s happening with the company “to get family buy-in and feedback,” Worthen says.
“We want to make sure we’re representing the family,” he adds.
The family’s values are ingrained in their business and company culture. Each year, Worthen Industries gives the Frederic P. Worthen award—which comes with a monetary component and an extra week of vacation—to two employees who embody the former CEO’s “love and concern for people, his desire to create and sustain, and his dedication to what he believed in.”
“The family values that we carry forward [are] a big part of how we interact with the world around us,” Worthen says.
