S. Dale High reflects on the faith, relationships, and decisions that shaped a lifetime in business.
By the usual measures, S. Dale High has lived a successful life. He built wealth and became well known, while staying close to his family. However, High never considered wealth or fame the main goal. Raised around his father’s steel business, hard work was modeled for him. His father would never ask someone to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. High remembers, “It didn’t matter if he was talking to the vice president of U.S. Steel or if he talked to the janitor. So far as he’s concerned, they were all on an equal plane. The title didn’t mean a thing to him.” Service was central to their family life and business. Local children knew they could stop to get their bicycles and tricycles fixed anytime. High’s father made sure of it. Whenever High found room for improvement — whether at home, in church, or in business — he was unafraid to speak up and work for change.
High struggled, for example, with what he considered the strict expectations of his family’s conservative Mennonite church. He believed there was room for change and was willing to say so. It also became apparent to High that the family business was too small to support two families. To increase production, High suggested creating a second shift at his family’s shop. At the time, he was just 17. It took much persuasion, but his father agreed and gave the task to his son. He added the shift, but the transition was difficult. Rather than force the change himself, he appealed to the first shift foreman to iron out the rough spots. It took time.
After high school, High attended Goshen College and later transferred to Elizabethtown College to get the business courses he needed. His time at Goshen College introduced him to a wider stream of Anabaptist thought, which resonated with him. He came to appreciate his spiritual heritage. Anabaptism, as he saw it, is a spiritual path guided by “biblical discipleship rather than doctrine or rules.”
“What are the lines we won’t cross?”
Having recently turned 84, High is now in a different stage of life — but his desire to learn, grow, and lead change is still strong. A favorite phrase of his is, “Never congeal into your final self.” This goes beyond how he lives his own life and includes how he views relationships, communities, and even the world.
Adding value
Speaking at a May 6 MEDA Network event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, High quoted Albert Einstein: “Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value.” High did not set out to build a business empire, even as his business interests grew to include controlling stakes in 46 companies. Instead, he saw needs and tried to add value. For High, that meant leading diverse people to work together to meet the needs he saw.
High spoke at the S. Dale High Leadership Center in Lancaster. His children built the facility to honor his legacy and as a way of thanking him. It provides meeting space for nonprofit organizations and community leaders to work together in shaping a better world.
Today, it is also home to the High Foundation, formed in 1980. The High family created the foundation as a vehicle for investing in the community; it also provided the philanthropic structure that decades later would become central to his succession plans.
Faith, leadership, and collaboration
As a speaker, High might be mistaken for a seasoned preacher rather than a successful entrepreneur. He urged his audience to consider what Christians are called to today. In a world of compromise, he asked, “What are the lines we won’t cross?”
Scripture points to the call to be good neighbors, expanding our “we” until it includes everyone. Drawing on Jon Meacham, High described good leadership as curiosity, candor, and empathy. Collaboration is key to High’s legacy. He quoted sociologist Margaret Mead, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” His drive to be a good neighbor, adding value to the world, has always been done in community.
Allon Lefever, who introduced High, described him in four words: wisdom, collaboration, steadiness, and integrity. Lefever served as High’s vice president of affiliated companies. He recalled dinner meetings where the presidents of each company shared updates on sales and plans for growth. Then the group would offer input into each of the sister companies. In many organizations, this would have created a culture of competition and shame. High, however, always set a collaborative tone.
The companies’ shared values also reinforced that collaborative approach. Those values were laid out in the High Philosophy, created in the 1970s. Rather than setting the organization’s values and culture on his own, High asked employees to help. Many drafts were written until everyone could agree, “This is who we want to be.” He wanted more than nice words on the wall; he wanted something practical.
A broader calling
As the businesses grew, so did his desire to add value. He saw that he could “add more value if [he didn’t] just stay in one lane.” Mentored by Anabaptist leaders such as Orie Miller, one of the founders of MEDA, as well as Don Jacobs and Chet Raber, High became involved in nonprofit leadership and community development. He worked with universities, community organizations, church leaders, and hospitals. Lefever said, “The list goes on and on. It would take all evening if I shared [all the organizations he’s been involved in].”
Letting go
Retirement was a long process. It took over a decade for High to step down from roles within and outside his company. One of his most consequential decisions was what to do with his ownership stake in so many businesses through High Industries. The main question he asked himself was, “Do I sell these businesses I believe in?”
Instead, High came up with a creative solution. Decades after establishing the High Foundation, he made a major donation to it: his ownership interest in High Industries. For the businesses and the local communities that relied on them, it meant stability. For the organizations that the foundation supports, it meant putting profits to work for good, well into the future.
Implementing that decision was complicated. Federal tax law makes it difficult for charitable foundations to own active companies. But High was undeterred. After several years of research and collaboration, his final act in business was not building his own success: it was providing value for others. Though no longer involved in the day-to-day business decisions of High Companies, he remains active as chair of High Foundation. “It’s hard to let go,” High said of retirement. “How do we become elders? It’s a whole different thing to think about. I’m continuing to work on that. It’s not in the doing; it’s in the being.”
