Kimball International: Jasper-based company nears 50 years.

When Arnold F. Habig established the Jasper Corp. in his hometown in 1950, he had two ambitious goals in mind: to employ 1,000 people and to turn a profit of $1 million.

Habig achieved those goals years ago. Today, as it closes in on its 50th anniversary, Kimball International Inc. - the

Habig, now in his early 90s, is retired from the company he founded, but he still stays active in Jasper business and civic affairs. Douglas Habig, Arnold's son, is chairman and CEO of Kimball International.

Arnold Habig started the company by purchasing a Jasper wood products manufacturer. In the early days, the company made wood television cabinets, serving television manufacturing plants in Bloomington, Indianapolis and Muncie.

The senior Habig believed strongly in the business principle of vertical integration. The 1950s were boom years for television manufacturers, and Habig didn't want to be at the mercy of suppliers.

In 1955, Habig bought Evansville Veneer and Lumber. A manufacturing company was formed in 1959 in Lafayette, Tennessee. The company established Indiana Hardwoods in Chandler in 1964 and built a wood manufacturing company in Dale the following year.

Arnold Habig also was leery about being too dependent upon one product. In 1959, Habig bought the Kimball Co., a Chicago manufacturer of quality pianos. Habig moved the company's manufacturing facilities to West Baden and created an electronics division to make organs under the Kimball brand name. Five years later, in 1966, Arnold Habig bought Bosendorfer, the Austrian manufacturer of some of the finest pianos in the world.

In the 1970s, Kimball International (the name was changed in 1974) began to make aggressive moves into the office-furniture business. Office furniture would eventually become the major part of Kimball's business; during the 1980s, Kimball branched into making furniture for the healthcare and lodging industries. The company even makes Victorian furniture reproductions at a plant in Alabama.

Another successful diversification was Jasper Plastics, formed in 1969 to produce molded polyurethane, polyesters and elastomers. ToolPro, established four years later, is a leading manufacturer of carbide cutting tools.

Arnold Habig's strategy for succeeding in business involved being flexible enough to retool production lines to take advantage of changing markets. When sales of electronic organs slumped in the late 1970s, Kimball converted plants in Jasper and in California, France and Mexico to contract electronic assembly of everything from antilock brake components to computer keyboards.

Besides its major presence in Jasper and adjacent areas of southwestern Indiana, Kimball operates plants in Kentucky, Tennessee, California, Idaho, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. Foreign plants are located in Mexico, France and Austria. Kimball also owns 14,000 acres of woodlands in Indiana and Kentucky. Arnold Habig parlayed his three-tiered business strategy of vertical integration, diversification and manufacturing flexibility into one of Indiana's biggest businesses of the second half of the 20th century.