Arthur Balik, retired chairman of the board for General Glass Industries (GGI) of Secaucus, N.J., passed away September 15, 2013. Balik and his younger brother, Albert, who died in August of last year, joined the family company in 1945 after serving in World War II. The “Balik Boys” were the third generation to enter the business, then operating out of the lower east side of Manhattan. At the time, General Glass Industries was a business of case goods and loose lites.
Remembering his brother last summer, Arthur Balik described the family company this way: “Back then, we didn’t do anything but cut the glass. We were importers and distributors, and it was a very tough, very competitive business.”
Arthur Balik was active in the Flat Glass Marketing Association, the precursor to the Glass Association of North America, as Eastern Section chairman and served on the national association’s executive committee.
Fifty years later, the brothers turned the company over to their sons, David and Richard, who developed new products for the picture frame and specialty glass divisions, expanded GGI’s North American glass distribution network and glass fabrication capabilities and acquired new technologies in the decorative and specialty glass markets.
“Arthur lived to see his grandson, Stephen, join the business as the fifth generation, and he was very proud of that,” says his son, David, president and CEO of GGI. “He taught us as a family ― and as a family company ― how to survive the tough times and to make the hard decisions needed to grow.”
Funeral services were held Tuesday in New Rochelle, N.Y. Arthur Balik is survived by his wife, Barbara, sister, Hilda, children Carol and David; grandchildren Adam, Joshua, Rachel and Stephen; great-grandchildren, Emma and Zoe; step-children Deana and Stephen; and grandchildren, Andrew, Bowen, Treyson, Stephen IV and Jessica.
