96-03-06 Tami Longaberger Kaido is New Trustee

LONGABERGER KAIDO TO JOIN OHIO STATE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

     COLUMBUS -- Excitement and enthusiasm.  Be it baskets 
or Buckeyes, Tami Longaberger Kaido brings those qualities 
to her company and her university.

     Longaberger, 34, president of The Longaberger Co., a 
Dresden, Ohio, basket manufacturer, and vice chairman of the 
Ohio State University Alumni Association, intends to share 
her love for Ohio State as a member of the Board of 
Trustees.  Gov. George V. Voinovich recently appointed her 
to a nine-year term beginning May 14.  She will succeed 
Milton A. Wolf.

     "I was thrilled when I got the call," Longaberger said.  
"I will bring a lot of enthusiasm to that seat and to that 
appointment.  "I'm thrilled to be a member of the board and 
make contributions from a woman's perspective.  Just as 
important, I'm enthused to be included in that group of 
folks."

      She is president of The Longaberger Co., a family-held 
private company described by The Wall Street Journal as the 
country's largest maker of hand-woven baskets.  The firm 
also sells pottery, dinnerware, fabric accessories and 
wrought iron products and is diversifying into more home 
accessories.

     Last year, The Longaberger Co., with 5,000 employees 
and 28,000 independent sales consultants, manufactured 8 
million baskets and had revenues of more than $410 million.  
The firm is known for rapidly growing direct sales, its 
philanthropy and investment in the Dresden community and 
Muskingum Valley, and a management philosophy that features 
employee elections of supervisors, free health care for 
employees, job rotation, and a 35-hour work week.

     "We think the world of our employees and our sales 
force," Longaberger said.  "I will be able to share some of 
those experiences with the trustees as well as experiences 
sitting on the alumni association board."

     As a marketing major, Longaberger received her Bachelor 
of Science degree in business administration in 1984.

     "She's refreshing and open," said Dan Heinlen, 
president and chief executive officer of the association.  
"She has loads of ideas -- an idea every minute.  She knows 
how the process works, how ideas are not just put forth, but 
developed into action.  She truly has a big picture 
perspective.

     "She's got a terrific heart for Ohio State and she 
wants to make a contribution.  She really believes in this 
place.

     Heinlen added, "She'll couple her enthusiasm as a young 
professional woman and mother with the experience of running 
her own major business, and make some translations that will 
be truly helpful to the university."

     Longaberger said, "My love for the university goes 
deep.  As an alumnus, you can't help but feel a special 
place in your heart for the university.  I'm very interested 
in doing what I can to help continue to make OSU a great 
university."

     Longaberger chairs the Ohio Building Authority and the 
Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.  She will step 
down from those posts and the alumni position in May to 
devote time to her trustee work.  She also is a member of 
the Mutual Federal Savings Bank Board of Directors in 
Zanesville, where she lives with her husband, Mike Kaido, 
and their children, Claire, 6, and Matthew, 4.

     As if being a new trustee won't be enough, Longaberger 
also is gearing up to carry the Olympic flame on its journey 
across America to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

     "I'm so excited," she said.  "I have to run a half mile 
with a three-and-a-half pound torch.  Just in case, I'm 
going to carry my Bic lighter in my pocket."

     Longaberger will be running a segment somewhere between 
Cincinnati and Findlay on or about June 7.

     "That's commencement, I understand," Longaberger said, 
"so if you see me jump up and run out of the stadium, you'll 
know why."
                             #

Contact:  Kerry Desberg, director of public relations, The 
Longaberger Co., (614) 754-5102.
Written by Tom Spring, (614) 292-8309.


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Thu, 7 Mar 1996 09:31:56 -0500]
All documents are the responsibility of their originator.