Lodge Celebrates Successful Succession
Lodge®, America’s Original Cookware Company, promoted Henry Lodge to CEO in mid-2016. Henry Lodge previously served as company COO-President, beginning in 2001. Henry Lodge succeeds Robert (Bob) F. Kellermann, who has served as the company’s Chairman-CEO since 2001.
Kellermann, president of the company from 1984 to 2001, is Lodge CEO Emeritus until his retirement in December 2017. Henry Lodge will retire at the end of 2019. Upon Henry Lodge’s retirement, the company will have its first ever non Lodge-Kellermann family members in senior management positions.
Through the years Henry Lodge and Bob Kellermann, great-grandsons of company founder Joseph Lodge, led the company through the most successful era in its history. In 2002, Lodge launched foundry seasoned cast iron cookware, Lodge Logic. The product enhancement earned accolades throughout the housewares industry, with Lodge Logic receiving a Good Housekeeping “Good Buy” Award in 2003. During the remainder of the decade, sales of the U.S. made cast iron cookware reached unprecedented heights, leading to a major foundry expansion (2013-15) and the construction of a new 127,000-square foot foundry and 212,000-square foot distribution center (2016-17). The new foundry will increase production capacity by 75 percent and is expected to be commissioned in late fall of 2017.
In 1991, Henry Lodge, acting as Executive Vice President, set the standard for environmentally sensitive manufacturing, replacing a coke-fired cupola melt system with induction furnaces. The update in technology changed the company’s status from a large quantity generator of hazardous waste to a small quantity generator. Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter, praised the innovation, bestowing Lodge Manufacturing Company with the 1994 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Hazardous Waste Reduction.
Members of the Lodge/Kellermann family have maintained senior leadership positions since Joseph Lodge opened the Blacklock Foundry in 1896. Successive leaders include Richard Leslie Lodge (1931-1949), Charles Richard Kellermann, Jr. (1949-1973) and William Leslie Kellermann (1973-1984).
