Robert Granum Dies

Robert Granum, founder and senior chairman of Panel Processing Inc. (Alpena, Mich.), died Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2003. He was 79.

Panel Processing, which Granum founded in 1971, is the largest producer and finisher of fabricated panel components to the store fixture, p-o-p, juvenile furniture, contract furniture and chalkboard and markerboard industries in North America.

An engineering graduate from the University of Minnesota, Granum attended Midshipmen's School and Columbia University in New York, and served two tours of duty in the Navy, 1945-1947 and 1951-1953.

In 1953, he became research director of a new hardboard manufacturing plant in Pilot Rock, Ore., then moved to Alpena in 1957 to assist in the startup of the Abitibi hardboard plant. He served as the first plant superintendent and ultimately as plant manager. After two year as vp, operations, at Abitibi's Birmingham, Mich., head office, he and his family returned to Alpena, where he invested his own money to begin Panel Processing.

An ESOP company since the mid-1980s, Panel Processing is now entirely employee-owned. It has over 200 employees and five manufacturing plants in four locations: Alpena and Coldwater, Mich., Merrillville, Ind., and Jacksonville, Texas.

Granum is survived by his wife of 59 years, Jacquelyn, and two sons, Greg Granum of Alpena and Bob Granum of Saratoga, Calif.; eight grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; a brother, Al Granum of Chicago; and a sister, Polly Erion of Fort Bragg, Calif.