They Call Themselves Harvard

When Melvin A. Ross founded his folding-box company in Lynn, Mass nearly 30 years ago, he had big plans.

"We were going to be the richest box company" in America, Ross says. Searching for a name that would convey his company's destiny, he settled on one that he considered synonymous with great wealth.

He called it the Harvard Folding Box Company.

"Harvard is a great name in this part of the country." Ross adds, explaining that while his company is not the richest box company in America, "we're doing very well."

Ross company is just one of countless businesses in a wide range of industries all over the United States who call themselves Harvard From New York to Los Angeles, Boston to Houston, phone books bulge with cleaners, car washes, retail stores, even restaurants which have--one way or another ended up with the same name as one of the most famous universities in the world.

"It's a sate name. It's a name you can't associate with anything bad. I guess," says Howard Hay of Harvard Cleaners in Philadelphia. But while Flay says he thinks the name safeguards the company apiarist all image of inferiority, he say he doesn't think it helps bring in more business because "Harvard doesn't really distinguish fashion care."

"I don't think a name in itself dote, help," he says, adding that good service and professionalism are more important.

But in an industry where "you live and die by your image," Flax says, a name like Harvard "certainly can't hurt."

"You try to portray the image lisle, says Stanley K. Doobin one of the owners of Harvard Maintenance. Ine..an office cleaning company in Manhanan.

Doobin says that his company's ad in the yellow pages features a man with a monocle and a tuxedo. And the advertising apparently helps.

"We even got a call last week and someone asked." Are you the educated cleaners? Says Doobin. But for all the prestige that comes along with the Harvard name, Doobin says that it wasn't the company's first choice.

"The previous owners wanted it to have a prestigious bare," he says, adding that their first chance was "Princeton" or "Yaks" though he's not sure which. Because there were already corporations it sing those natures in the sate, the company had to settle for Harvard.

But not all companies called Harvard got their name because of the prestige associated with the University.

"My guess would be that it's because the owner's husband is named Harvey," explains James Grilhert, managaer of Harvard Collection Services in Chicago, when asked why his company is called Harvard.

And James A.R. Stauff, president of the Harvard Corporation of Evansville, Wisconsin, says that his concern's title didn't come from the University.

"It's an acronym," Stauff continues, explaining that the founders of the company. Harvey and Maynard Schade, combined parts of their first names to come up with the company's name.

But Stauff is willing to give the original Mr. Harvard the credit for the prestige associated with the name.

"It's an excellent name thanks to foam Harvard and we're very prond of it." He says, adding that, "It's trademarked in but industry."

Not only trademarked, but Tamiliar, too, discarding in him Wilson, co-owner of Harvard Elite's Sales of Georgia. Who distributes the product manufactured by the Wisconsin company. "It's a well-known name in the held of by-pass filtration." Wilson says.

It's not surprising that one person who isn't thrilled with the long list of companies who call themselves Harvard is Joyce Brinton, director of the Office for Patents, Copyrights and Licensing at the Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.

"Harvard's name is Harvard's name, and Harvard owns it and can use it," she says. "That's pretty well established in common law."

Beyond that, she says, "we would prefer that our name isn't used by anyone" else.

"We do not have any arrangement with anyone that licenses them to use the name," she says, but she adds that the University has never taken court action against people who have invoked the name of Harvard in their businesses.

"It's question of when do we feel it is necessary to do that," she says. "So far, we haven't gotten that far."

Brinton says that Harvard's policy is to say "no" when companies ask to use the name. "We get inquiries from a fair number of people every year who-want to use Harvard's name for one thing or another," she says. When this happens, Brinton says, the University tells them "we don't license it."

She adds that there is a possibility that some time in the future the University will decide to license people who use the name. Because of this possibility, people who call their institutions Harvard without an official license "are taking a bit of a chance."

If such a policy change does come about, the University will certainly have a big task ahead of it. Some companies are named Harvard coincidentally. Others, like Harvard Dry Cleaners, Harvard Car Wash. Harvard Auto and Truck Repair, Harvard Refuse and even the Harvard. Family Restaurant--all in Cleveland--seem to take their name from their close proximity to scores of streets, roads and avenues around America that are also named Harvard.

And sitting through them all could take 350 years. The Los Angeles phone book lists around a dozen Harvard companies. Manhattan has more than 20 Boston's white pages bulges with Harvards, and most of the major cities in America have their share as well.

And even companies that actively promote the prestigious image that comes along with being named Harvard assert that they have as much right to the name as anyone else. Asked whether the University has ever approached his company about the use of the name, Harvard Maintenance's Doobin says "I don't see why they should it's just a name.