Nathan Swartz
Nathan Swartz was an American shoemaker and businessman, and the founder of The Timberland Company.Biography
Nathan Swartz was born to a poor Jewish family in July 1902 in Odessa, Russian Empire, the fourth generation of a family of shoemakers. Soon before the First World War, the family migrated to the US.
Swartz started as an apprentice in a New York shoe repair shop. In 1952, he bought a 50% stake in the Abington Shoe Company, in Massachusetts, which later became Timberland.
Swartz lost several fingers in an industrial accident.
Swartz retired in 1968.
He had two sons, Herman and Sidney.
Herman was the CEO from 1968 to 1986 and Sidney was the CEO from 1986 to 1998. In 1998, Sidney's son Jeffrey Swartz took over.
