Amway: the global company that started in two Ada basements

Drive east out of Grand Rapids on Fulton Street and you’ll hit a campus more than a mile long in Ada Township — the world headquarters of Amway, a direct-selling outfit that moves household, beauty, and nutrition products to dozens of countries. It is a strikingly big footprint for a company that began in two basements down the road.

Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos were childhood friends who’d already tried a handful of ventures together before this one stuck. They founded Amway in 1959, working out of the basements of their own homes in Ada, and the thing took off through the 1960s. What’s notable is what they didn’t do: they didn’t decamp for a coast or a bigger market. The company grew into a global business while staying put in a small West Michigan town.

It’s still privately held by the founding families, the Van Andels and DeVoses — unusual for a company this size — and those families turned a lot of that fortune back toward Grand Rapids. Their names are bolted across downtown: the Van Andel Arena, the Van Andel Institute for medical research, DeVos Place convention center, and more. A good share of the modern skyline traces back, one way or another, to money that started flowing out of two suburban basements in 1959.

You don’t have to hold any particular opinion of how Amway sells things to find that arc remarkable — a worldwide company that built itself a mile-long headquarters and never moved more than a few miles from where it began.