History/Henshel, Harry Bulova
Harry Bulova Henshel
Harry Bulova Henshel (1919-2007) served as chairman and CEO of the Bulova Watch Corporation. Henshel was the last member of the Bulova family to head the company, which was founded in 1875 in New York City by his grandfather Joseph Bulova. Henshel was involved in founding the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking, named after his grandfather, which was begun and funded by family members in 1945 to train disabled war veterans.
Henshel was born in New York in 1919. He earned degrees from Brown University and Harvard School of Business and served in World War II, rising to captain.
After WWII, he joined the family business, headed at the time by his uncle, Ardé Bulova. Under his uncle's tutelage, Henshel learned the business from the ground up, serving in various capacities until Ardé Bulova's death in 1958, at which point Henshel assumed presidency over the company. He later became chairman of the board in 1974.
Henshel led the company to new revenue heights with the release of the highly accurate Bulova Accutron and popular Caravelle lines. By the late 1960s, his brand had claimed 55 percent of the U.S. market, with dollar sales figures for Caravelle and Accutron topping those of competitors Elgin and Hamilton.
Bulova became a subsidiary of Loews Corporation in 1979 and Henshel kept an office in Woodside, New York, at the company headquarters until his death. Harry Bulova Henshel passed away on June 29, 2007 in Scarsdale, New York, following a long illness. He was 88.