J. Craig Huff, Jr. Records

Craig J. Huff Jr. was born on August 2, 1920 in Philadelphia, PA. Following his graduation from Williams College, he became a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and served on an LST in the Mediterranean Theatre in World War II. After the war he took a position at the Draper Corporation, a manufacturer of power looms for the textile industry. Determined to learn the business from the ground up, Huff started off working in the foundry. Eventually he joined the sales department, and in the mid-1960's, he was named President of Draper where he remained in that position until 1972, when the company was taken over by Rockwell International.

After leaving Draper, Huff became president of Fenn Manufacturing and later served as a consultant for Morgan Construction Company, a manufacturer of steel rolling mill equipment. When he left Morgan, he decided that having spent his career working for large global corporations, he wanted to use his business expertise to run a small company. In 1979, he formed a partnership with a small group of investors and bought the Hayes Pump and Machinery Company, a distributor of pumps and related equipment. As the president and CEO of Hayes, he used his talents to increase the company's annual revenues from $3-4 million to $30 million. In addition to his responsibilities at Hayes, Huff also served as a director of Pitney Bowes and the investment firm, The Colonial Fund in Boston, MA. He was one of the founders of the American Textile History Museum formerly in Lowell, MA. In 2007, Huff was honored for the time and resources he had devoted to Williams by receiving the prestigious Joseph's Coat Award. Huff had a passionate interest in American history, beginning with his own family's story of arriving here in 1607 to help establish the first settlement in Jamestown, VA.

Huff died on October 20, 2009 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 89