Beginning at 3 a.m. on two different days Gregory met with employees in groups of 50, spending an hour with each group fielding questions on the decisions the company had to make to remain viable in the face of overseas competition.

"The apparel market for goods made in the United States is shrinking. The figure quoted for the amount of imported merchandise is as high as 96 percent. We have 12 plants in Macon and the reason why we are still in business in Macon is because we’ve successfully diversified in other-than-apparel markets, and we’ve made the effort to remain competitive," says Gregory, TE 70, who became president and CEO of YKK Corp. of America in January 2002.

Recently Gregory was named the first non-Japanese group officer of the Tokyo-based worldwide manufacturer of sewn products fasteners and architectural building products.

Keeping jobs in Macon is also important to Gregory on a personal level. He remembers a phone call he received in December 1975 from his father, Edward Alexander Gregory Sr., telling him they were closing the Eatonton, Ga., cotton mill his father had worked at most of his life.

"He was 55 years old and he died two days later. It killed him," Gregory says.

In 2003, Gregory lowered wages and cut benefits for all employees, including himself, and made the tough decision to discontinue producing some yarns in Macon because it was much less expensive to buy the material than produce it.

Gregory has taken to heart the company philosophy created by YKK founder Tadao Yoshida, who said a business must foster a "cycle of goodness."

Yoshida believed that the continual creation of innovative ideas and inventions and the resulting business expansion would bring prosperity to consumers and trading partners, thus benefiting all society.

"In all decisions we make, we think of the stakeholders," Gregory says. "The employees, the communities, the customers, these are all stakeholders." With this thought, Gregory and his team created the "Competitive YKK Macon Initiative," his plan to keep YKK’s Macon plants open and profitable.

"I went down and met with the mayor, the county commission chairman and our employees before we announced anything and they appreciated that," Gregory says. "I also wanted our employees in Macon to understand the challenges we face now. Our customers are making sourcing decisions, whether to buy from the United States or Asia, and we need to be as competitive as possible to keep them in this hemisphere. YKK has a strong presence throughout Asia, but we want to be competitive here.

"I feel an obligation to the communities we are in and especially Macon. I was the first person hired there before the first plant was built."

As the textiles market tightens in the United States and moves increasingly offshore, YKK is strengthening itself in other areas. While its zippers hold pants up, the company’s other products are holding buildings up. The company’s aluminum products division — YKK AP America, which produces extruded aluminum architectural products and has a plant in Dublin, Ga. — accounts for two-thirds of its global revenue.

"Architectural products are a huge part of YKK’s business, although to date sales in the United States are in the commercial realm — office buildings, schools and nonresidential construction. We are currently looking at the very stable, growing residential market. YKK Japan has already diversified into both commercial and residential products," he says.

In the past, YKK America sought to be viewed as an American company though it had Japanese ownership, however now it embraces its global roots. YKK consists of companies in 66 countries, but Gregory says he wants the 15 companies in the region to think and act as one.

©2004 Georgia Tech Alumni Association