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Fabulous Fancher

Local Furniture Manufacturing Executiuve Speaks To City Rotary Club

From left are John Healy, Rotary president; Gary Henry Sr., Fancher Chair executive; and Courtney Curatolo, Rotary program committee member.

The Rotary Club of Jamestown welcomed Gary Henry Sr., a representative of the Fancher Chair of Falconer, to its recent weekly meeting.

A native of the area, Henry graduated from Jamestown Community College with an associate degree in Accounting and attended Syracuse to study wood. He started as the office manager for Sterlingworth in 1968, later becoming the plant manager. When Fancher purchased Sterling in 1975, he ran the operation for them. He remained the general manager until 1986 when he became the cost and accounting manager.

Henry founded Falcon Chair in 1992 for Crawford Manufacturing and ran the company until 2010, where he still works part time. Henry’s son now owns the company.

Fancher Chair has been in business for 215 years. The company has no sales staff; all sales are a result of word of mouth. It has innovated over the years, including a future addition of upholstery to its chair line; safety, including installation of safe instrumentation for workers; environmental soundness and building a strong workforce, many who have been with the company for many years. They also believe in diversification because to remain the same in the furniture business is to become non-existent.

The company has sold chairs to the White House, made temporary benches for the remodeling of the Chautauqua Amphitheatre and then manufactured the final benches, and now is working on a hammock chair that was seen on television’s “Shark Tank.”

The company uses a great deal of different types of lumber to include walnut, cherry, maple and ash and they also import European beach.

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