The Presidents of the AGBU, 1906-2006
Arshag Karagheusian (1942-1953)
Alex Manoogian (1953-1989)
Alex Manoogian, who was born in Kasaba, near Smyrna, in 1901 and died in Detroit in 1996, was the AGBU’s fifth president (1953-1989). He emigrated to the United States in 1920, set-tling in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1924, he struck out for Detroit, where he founded a company, Masco Screw Products, in 1929. In 1954, he purchased the rights to a single-handle faucet, which he proceeded to redesign. This faucet was tremendously successful on the American market, rapidly transforming Masco into a powerful industrial conglomerate which, today, under the direction of Alex’s son, Richard, controls more than thirty different companies.
With Alex Manoogian, the AGBU unmistakably entered...Read all
Arshag Karagheusian, who was born in Constantinople in 1872 and died in New York in 1963, emigrated to the United States shortly after graduating Robert College. He made a fortune in his country of adoption. In October 1942, after a long term as chairman of the United States District Committee, he was elected the AGBU’s fourth president, serving until 1953.
His election was of course no accident. It should be recalled that the AGBU’s United States chapters had, in the 1920s and 1930s, been the principal donors to the organization’s hu-manitarian programs in the Near East, and that the Karagheusian family had itself founded, in 1921, the Howard Karagheusian Memorial Corporation (named after Arshag’s nephew, who ... Read all