He started out making well under a dollar an hour as just a toolmaker. Decades later, his net worth was likely a state secret, but Merlin Hanson of Michigan’s Great Southwest was “still just a toolmaker” to the very end, which came on Tuesday at the age of 94.
The millionaire industrialist, born to deaf parents in South Bend, Indiana, worked harder, and smarter, than most people are ever even willing to consider, and his legacy is legendary across the region. His story has been told a number of times through the years, but one of the most complete compendiums of a life well lived came in the Public Television documentary from WNIT Public Television in South Bend as part of their Legends of Michiana series. The great documentary about a truly colorful character is still available for viewing on the station’s website.
The story delves deeply into Merlin’s remarkable rise to power through his myriad enterprises from Hanson Mold and Hanson Logistics to Eagle Technologies and beyond. The biography tells a warm story about the dynamic accomplishments of Merlin and his associates in the world of business, but equally as important, in the world of community.
His story was already legendary before the Public Television crews came onto the scene, but the WNIT broadcast team and researchers did a marvelous job of capturing the essence of what it meant to be Merlin Hanson, to be a part of his family, a part of his inner circle, a part of his life, and the part that he played in so many of our lives across the region for decades.
The hour-long broadcast takes you back to the very beginning and the startling fact that he didn’t learn to talk until he was five years old, and his undying dedication to innovation, fairness, perfection, and the ability to scope a vision for his enterprise as well as the place he called home.
From entrepreneur to philanthropist, from industrialist to community leader, Merlin Hanson and his wife Carolyn have had a major impact on the greater community along Lake Michigan, yet…as the story so eloquently portrays…he was still just a toolmaker who went to work every single day well beyond “retirement.”
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Mr. Hanson began a career in the tool and die business following a brief time spent in the Navy. After 50 years of wonderful experiences and having met people in high positions, Merlin Hanson was always proud to say that he was still “Just a Toolmaker.”
WNIT’s capsule of the Hanson story tells us, “Merlin’s own words have helped guide this process. He wrote a short biography that details the lives of his parents who were both deaf and his childhood in South Bend. Whether it was working in the garden with his Aunt Ruth or building things in shop class, he relished any opportunity to work with his hands and that fostered his sense of accomplishment and desire to create. Merlin and his longtime friend, Dan Hillegas, founded Weldun Industries, a tool and die shop that originally employed 3 people and went on to be sold to Bosch Corporation of Germany. Following his success with Weldun, Merlin went on to acquire and run cold storage, beverage and other mold fabrication enterprises. Keeping it in the family, his children have been involved at many levels of each of his businesses.
Merlin and his wife Carolyn married in 1982 and together undertook very active roles as philanthropists and leaders in the community. They are avid art collectors and have donated a bulk of their collection now on display at the Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College. One of their most recent endeavors was the Merlin & Carolyn Hanson Hospice Center at Lakeland Health that provides hospice care to patients and their families. Merlin is also passionate about yachting which he and Carolyn enjoyed as they split their time between St. Joseph, Michigan and Florida.”
Merlin and Carolyn also donated $1.5 million to Lakeland Health for the construction of what is now called the Hanson Heart Center.
Spectrum Health Lakeland says the heart center – which is named in the family’s honor – is on the first floor of the new 260,000-square-foot Medical Center Pavilion in St. Joseph.
Dan Hopp, who served as the hospital’s board chair at the time of the donation, said, “We thank the Hansons for their leadership and dedication to provide nationally-recognized heart care right here in Southwest Michigan,” and added, “Their gift paves the way for advancements in reducing the incidence of cardiac and vascular disease in our community and improving outcomes for those affected.”
Merlin Hanson responded, “This gift is an effort to honor and give back some of our success to the people who’ve worked for us – and still work for us – as well as ‘for the good of all,” a motto our family has always strived to uphold in all we do.” He concluded, ‘The Hanson Heart Center will help provide future generations with quality, compassionate care well into the future.”
In a profile for RSVP SWMI Magazine several years ago, Author Kathy Zerler wrote, “At a time in life when many people choose to cruise on a golf cart, Merlin Hanson goes to work. When asked why, he laughed and said, ‘A lot of people would like to know the answer to that question. The truth is I love to work.”
He truly did. He was the founder of the forerunner to today’s Cornerstone Alliance economic development agency which at the time was known as the Community Economic Development Corporation, and he was single-handedly responsible for convincing the amazing Jeff Noel to move to Michigan to head up that organization, a move that has fostered countless successful ventures in the region. He also served on the Board of Trustees at Lake Michigan College and the LMC Foundation, and was instrumental in creating the Hanson Technology Center on the Napier Avenue campus through the generosity of he and Carolyn.
Zerler pointed out that a brass-plated sign at the Hanson Group headquarters, then situated on South State Street in St. Joe confirmed his personal philosophy that “None of us is better than all of us together.”
It was a philosophy he lived to the very end. A true titan of industry, but a friend who always had your back, Merlin Hanson and his magnificent smile will be missed along the waters of Lake Michigan. Rest in Peace, my friend. You have earned it more than practically anyone that I know.
