Grote.

• Author: Spaid, Ora
• Position: Grote Manufacturing Co. - Company profile

Grote Manufacturing Co. of Madison is the nation's largest maker of lighting and safety equipment for the commercial vehicle market.

Grote (pronounced "Gro-tee") Manufacturing Co. in Madison has doubled its business in the past five years, a period when almost half the other U.S. automotive parts companies were merging or selling in order to survive.

The firm just completed a $7 million addition to its plant, the 13th expansion since it moved to Madison in 1960 from outgrown facilities in Seymour and Bellevue, Ky. Grote's Madison work force has grown tenfold to almost 1,000 employees.

Amidst the managerial musical chairs of the mergers-and-acquisitions era, Grote's family ownership is as solid and continuous as ever. Leadership was passed completely to the third generation in a recent reorganization intended to position Grote for an expected increase in competition from foreign producers. William D. "Bill" Grote, the youngest, was named president to replace his brother, Walter F. "Buzz" Grote, Jr., who moved over to chairman of the board and CEO.

After 55 years at the helm, their father, Walter F. Grote, 89, stepped down to vice chairman and once-a-week visits to the off ice from his home in Cincinnati. That is where his father, William D. Grote, a chemicals broker, started it all in 1922 when he bought the National Colortype Company. National Colortype, just across the Ohio River in Bellevue, Ky., was then a manufacturer of road signs. Today, Grote makes 400 products-stop, tail and turn lights; fog lamps; mirrors; flashers; markers; reflectors-for trucks, buses, passenger cars, recreational vehicles, ambulances and even boats and snowplows.

Picture a tractor-trailer rolling down the highway at night, its presence announced by 24 different lights. Grote makes them all, everything a trucker needs to see and be seen.

This Indiana firm's advance to becoming the nation's largest maker of lighting and safety products for the commercial vehicle market raises the question. What is different about Grote?

Put those questions to Bill Grote, the president, and the term "aggressive" keeps turning up in his answers. "Aggressive management and ownership committed to driving the business, relentlessly pursuing every possible opportunity," he says.

An example: In 1984, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration asked Ford Motor Co. to build a prototype car equipped with air bags. Grote heard there was also interest in high-mount rear...