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Richards Harmer “Dix” Jarden (b. April 4, 1920, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American businessman and industry leader in the contract cleaning industry. He is the Chairman of the Board of The Bullen Companies, which he purchased for $10.00 in 1968 and built into a multi-million dollar business based in Folcroft, Pennsylvania, with branch plants in Atlanta, Miami, and Chicago.

Jarden is an Honorary Life Trustee of the Valley Forge Military Academy and College Board of Trustees and was on the Board of the International Sanitary Supply Association from 1990-1993, serving as President in 1993.

Early Life

Dix Jarden is the eldest child of Richards Jarden (1892-1945) and Agnes Paden Jarden (1894-1987). He had a younger sister, Barbara Jarden Walsh (1923-1964).

His father was in the lumber business and following the end of World War I took a job in New York City with the Hines Lumber Company. When Dix was six months old, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. His father held management positions with the Port Huron Lumber Company and later the Pickering Lumber Company in Chicago before returning to Philadelphia to join the Lear Lumber Company^[1].

Unhappy with the lumber business, Richards Jarden took a job with his father’s company, Red Letter J, manufacturing furniture polish. In 1932, with $1,200 in savings and loans from friends, he started Franklin Research Company with his friend Charles LaRoche, who had some chemical ability, manufacturing a single product—solvent wax for wood and linoleum floors ^[2]. They then developed one of the first water emulsion waxes, called Rubber Gloss Wax, for newly developed rubberized floor coverings ^[3].

Dix Jarden grew up in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Lower Merion High School in 1940. He received his life-long nickname, a contraction of Richards, from a high school girlfriend.

Following high school, he attended Valley Forge Military Academy Junior College, graduating in the spring of 1942 as class President.

World War II

Jarden enlisted in the Army as a private and was selected for the Corps of Engineers Officers Candidate School in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, leading him to active duty as a Second Lieutenant with the 154th Engineers Battalion (C Company). He served in the Pacific Theater of Operation in 1944-1945. The Combat Engineers played a significant role in the fighting on Peleliu in the Palau Islands (Sept-Nov 1944). He attained the rank of Captain, was Company Commander, and was discharged at the end of the war in the Pacific.

Personal Life after World War II

In the summer of 1946, Jarden agreed to go on a blind date with Martha Helliwell Smith in Ocean City, New Jersey. They were married on January 11, 1947, at a candlelight service in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They began married life in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and had four children: Richards (1947- ), Suzanne Jarden Herchenrider (1950-2002), Fred Scott (1953- ) and David Smith (1958- ) Martha Jarden died on February 5, 2006.

Since his graduation from Valley Forge Military Academy in 1942, he has maintained an active role in the school’s Alumni Association and is an Honorary Life Trustee.

Professional Life after World War II

Jarden returned to Philadelphia after the war and went to work with his father at the Franklin Research Company as a salesman. He rose through the ranks and, in 1955, became President of Franklin Distributors, a subsidiary sales division of Franklin Research. In 1965, his father’s surviving partners sold the business to the Purex Corporation, based in California. Jarden resigned a year after the Purex purchase.

In 1968, he bought the small, struggling Philadelphia-based Bullen Chemical Company for $10.00. The company grew steadily, manufacturing private label cleaning products. In 1975, the AirX Laboratories division was established, becoming one of the industry’s leading odor control product lines. The Bullen Companies manufacture more than 200 products, maintaining a 150,000 square-foot manufacturing and storage facility in Folcroft, Pennsylvania. At age 88, Jarden remains active in the business as its Chairman. His son, Fred Scott Jarden, is President.

References

^ “A Portrait: Agnes Paden Jarden” - interviews transcribed and published by her grandchildren on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Self published in an edition of 100. 1984.
^ “ Motivated to Innovate” Becky Mollenkamp, SM Sanitary Maintenance, May 2003. http://www.cleanlink.com/sm/article.asp?id=796&keywords=
^ “Then and Now” Seiche Sanders, SM Sanitary Maintenance, May 2003. http://www.cleanlink.com/sm/article.asp?id=793