Political Quotes

“on July 7, Michigan lost a great champion. Over his 94 years, Peter M. Wege accomplished many lifetimes worth of goals. He helped the company his father founded, Steelcase, into one of the world's leading office furniture companies, employing thousands of Michiganians and helping cement the status of Grand Rapids as the world's hub of office furniture making. And had he done no more than lead a great company and provide jobs to great workers, he would be worthy of celebration. But as his hometown paper, the Grand Rapids Press, described him with typical West Michigan understatement, Pete Wege was ``an unconventional industrialist.'' In a community that has benefited greatly from the public spirit of its business leaders, few have rivaled the impact of this remarkable man. Always aware of his good fortune and of the needs of his community, he poured money that could have made him one of the world's wealthiest people into the Grand Rapids area and beyond. Libraries and schools, theaters and museums, churches and civic buildings, parks and wilderness areas all benefitted from his generosity and vision. And he had those two qualities--generosity and vision--in abundance. He was more than a philanthropist; he was a man on a mission. That mission began when he was on another kind of mission, serving his country during World War II, when he flew as a transport pilot.…”