Microstory 769: Hen

< > Table of Contents

In 1867, Eoin Burke, having traveled from Ireland to the United States, began a musical instrument manufacturing company called Hudson Euphonics Neorama with his friend, Cyril Kader. Of course, it started out small, but gradually grew as word spread, and their work became popular. Their ability to create custom-build instruments at a high turnover earned them a brilliant reputation in the midwest. Things went really well for them for half a century, until Cyril fell ill, and died. Cyril’s son took over the business, and was not at all interested in maintaining their image as a family business. Through some legal maneuvering, Junior Kader managed to push Eoin out of his own business, leaving him with virtually nothing. Though he was seventy years old, he had but a few years ago fathered a son out of his marriage, then realizing his and his wife’s inability to conceive children was due to her infertility, rather than his sterility. He fell into a deep depression, which coupled with his advanced age, prevented him from effectively caring for his son. Hearing the story of his grandfather’s struggles inspired Manus Burke to start his own company, one hundred years later, almost exactly to the day, in 1967. By then, HEN had expanded into several unrelated industries, transforming it beyond recognition. Wanting to immediately begin competing with an organization he considered to be his family’s enemy, Manus started out in the furniture sector, which was HEN’s weakest at that point in time. His success with this allowed him to later start competing with HEN’s second weakest division of clothing ten years later. And then a pattern formed, with Magnate entering new markets after about five years of slowly overtaking the previous one. In 1992, in honor of his family’s legacy, Magnate began manufacturing musical instruments, and though they were never able to become more successful in this than HEN, or other competitors, the division survived by utilizing profits from other divisions. For his own reasons, Manus Burke kept the secret of what HEN had done to his grandfather to himself, not even fighting about it with the original company’s leadership, as it changed hands over time. Only after his death did the truth come to light. The new Chief Executive Officer of HEN, Cassarah Hardwick was horrified to learn of her company’s dark history, and worked to mend relations between it and the new Magnate executives, Manus Burke’s two estranged daughters. This marked the beginning of one of the greatest business partnerships in the country.