Shoemaker To The World.
Bata Press Release
It is with great sadness that the Bata Family and the Bata Shoe Organization announce the sudden passing of Thomas John Bata, at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto at the age of 93.
As “Shoemaker To The World”, Thomas J. Bata was a man of outstanding qualities and achievements who had a positive influence on the lives of many millions of people throughout the world.
He was born in Prague and educated in Czechoslovakia, England and Switzerland. His father Tomas had founded the Bata Shoe Organization in 1894. After his father’s premature death in an aircraft accident in 1932, Thomas J. Bata was guided by his late-father’s moral testament: that the Bata Shoe company was to be treated not as a source of private wealth, but as a public trust, a means of improving living standards within the community and providing customers with good value for their money. He promised to pursue the entrepreneurial and humanitarian ideals of his father. This became his life’s work.
Anticipating the Second World War, Mr. Bata, together with over 100 families from Czechoslovakia, moved to Canada in 1939 to develop the Bata Shoe Company of Canada centred in a town that still bears his name, Batawa, Ontario.
The Second World War saw many Bata businesses in Europe and the Far East destroyed. After the Second World War, the core business enterprise in Czechoslovakia and other major enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe were nationalized by Communist governments. Tom devoted himself to the rebuilding and growth of the Bata Shoe Organization together with his wife and partner, Sonja. He successfully spearheaded ethical and innovative expansion into new markets throughout Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Under his leadership the Bata Shoe Organization experienced unprecedented growth and became the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of footwear selling over 300 million pairs of shoes each year and employing over 80,000 people. “Our customer – Our Master” was one of his guiding principles.
Thomas J. Bata was particularly proud of his association with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. He joined the Regiment during the Second World War and served as a Captain in the Canadian Reserve Army and as Honorary Colonel from 1999 to 2007.
Mr. Bata’s consideration for others led to his work with numerous charitable organizations. He was Chairman of the Bata Shoe Foundation. His dedication to Junior Achievement International, Trent University and York University in Canada and the Tomas Bata University in the Czech Republic reflected his special interest in the education of young people.
His business qualities included vision, dedication, energy and drive for excellence. He was also an exceptional mentor to those who worked with him.
He saw business as a contributor to human well being internationally. He always made it a priority to ensure that his businesses not only contributed to the economies of the new markets he entered, but also made a positive difference in the lives of his employees and their communities. Many Bata operations were established with medical, educational and social facilities for Bata employees.
He saw business as a contributor to human well being internationally. He always made it a priority to ensure that his businesses not only contributed to the economies of the new markets he entered, but also made a positive difference in the lives of his employees and their communities. Many Bata operations were established with medical, educational and social facilities for Bata employees.
Mr. Bata participated in several leading business organizations. In Canada, he was a former Director of Canadian Pacific Airlines and IBM Canada. He was a founding member of the Young Presidents Organization, Chairman of the Commission on Multinational Enterprises of the International Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to OECD. He was particularly fond of India and was a founding member of the Canada India Business Council.
In addition to his many university doctorates, he was a Companion of the Order of Canada and received the Order of T.G. Masaryk in Czechoslovakia. In 2007 he proudly received the First Lifetime Award for Responsible Capitalism in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Bata continually stimulated those around him to be passionate about their work and to continually aim higher. He was a true inspiration to everyone he met. His vision was to “shoe the world”. His vitality, wisdom, generosity and sense of humour endeared him to people of all ages.
He enjoyed spending time with his family and friends, whether at home or exploring unfamiliar destinations, skiing, swimming or playing tennis. In fact, he continued to enjoy sporting activities until shortly before his death.
He was an example of how ideals and qualities can and will continue to inspire all of us.
In his own way, Thomas J. Bata has left his “footprint” on humanity.
Mr. Bata is survived by his much loved wife and partner, Sonja (born Wettstein), son - Thomas George who is the present CEO and Chairman of the Bata Shoe Organization; and three daughters, Christine, Monica, Rosemarie, and their families.
The funeral mass and commemoration of Thomas Bata’s life will take place at The Franciscan Church of St. Bonaventure, 1300 Leslie Street, North York on Friday, September 5, 2008 at 4 pm. In lieu of flowers, if desired, donations may be made to Junior Achievement of Canada, 1 Eva Road, Suite 218, Toronto, Ontario M9C 4Z5, 001-416-622-4602, or to the Thomas Bata Foundation in Zlin, Czech Republic, Gahurova 292, www.batova-vila.cz, sekretariat@batova-vila.cz , phone 00420-577-219-083.
A second commemoration event will take place on September 16 in Zlin, the Czech Republic. It will start at 11 am with a concert at Bata University, and will be followed by a church service at 4 pm.
Czech-born shoe tycoon Bata Jr dies aged 93
Friday, 5 September 2008. Prague Daily Monitor
Zlin, South Moravia/Toronto, Canada, Sept 1 (CTK) - Czech-Canadian businessmen Tomas Bata Jr, who headed the Bata international shoe-making concern, died in Toronto this afternoon at the age of 93, Pavel Velev, head of the Tomas Bata Foundation in Zlin, told CTK Monday.
The funeral will take place in Toronto on Friday, Bata's media representative Jindrich Lacko told CTK.
Bata's death was sudden and unexpected, Velev said.
"He has passed away peacefully in the middle of work and new plans, surrounded by his closest people," Velev said in a press release.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus said the report on Bata's death had made him sad.
"One of the really great personalities of our present times has left, a man who has managed to break through in the world in spite of the destiny's adversity in his homeland and who has become a symbol of a business success for us," Klaus wrote in a press release.
"For me he [Bata Jr] was an example of an excellent Czech businessman, though he mainly operated in Canada and the Bata firm is nowadays a global company," Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said, commenting on Bata's death.
He recalled that Bata Jr did not lack courage and invention that both are important in business.
"His success has served as a great example for a high number of businesspeople. I wish he became an inspiration for future generations as well," Topolanek added.
Jaroslav Mil, president of the Czech Confederation of Industry, pointed to Bata's lifelong interest in the problems of employers and recalled that his father assisted in the birth of the Confederation of Industry at the beginning of the 20th century.
The public can sign the letters of condolence at the Zlin Town Hall, its spokeswoman Marie Masarikova told CTK.
The Zlin municipal assembly will observe a minute of silence in memory of Bata on Thursday.
The Bata Foundation will create a commemorative place in the Villa of Tomas Bata in Zlin where people can pay homage to Bata Jr from 10:00 on Tuesday.
Tomas Bata Jr continued the shoe-making tradition of his father, Tomas Bata, who in 1894 founded the famous shoe company in Zlin, which grew into the major industrial enterprise in the region before World War Two and caused Zlin to grow from a small village into a large town.
After the communists seized power in then Czechoslovakia in 1948, Bata's factories were nationalised and his son fled to Canada.
Bata Jr then established the new Bata Shoe Organisation in Toronto which he headed until recently when he assigned his son with the management.
Following the fall of Communism in 1989, Bata Jr and his wife Sonja, with whom he had one son and three daughters, were among the first post-1948 emigrants to return to the Czech Republic where the Bata corporation resumed its business activities.
In the spirit of his father, Bata Jr also supported education of young people.
He established the Junior Achievement educational organisation for young businessmen.
Ten years ago he set up the Foundation of Tomas Bata in Zlin, headed by his daughter Monica, and he supported its activities both financially and intellectually.
Bata also helped found the University of Tomas Bata in Zlin and chaired its board.
Moreover, he contributed to the shoe-making industry, in particular he directly participated in the development of a computer technology for shoe design.
Bata Jr was the president of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s Business and Industry Advisory Committee for the transformation of the Central and East European countries. Thanks to his initiative, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were accepted to this organisation
In his lifelong work Bata promoted the ethical rules in business.
He was awarded many high decorations, such as the Czech state Order of T. G. Masaryk and the Slovak White Double-Cross.
He received honorary doctorates from a number of world universities.
Czech born shoemaker Bata dies at 93
1 September 2008. International Herald Tribune
PRAGUE, Czech Republic: Thomas Bata, the Czech-born head of the worldwide family shoe empire that bears his name, died Monday in Canada, an official said. He was 93.
Bata died on Monday in a hospital in Toronto, said Pavel Velev, who heads the Thomas Bata Foundation based in the Bata family's former villa in the eastern Czech town of Zlin. He did not give the cause of death.
"One of the greatest personalities of our time has left," Czech President Vaclav Klaus said in a statement. "Despite ill fortune in his homeland, he managed to succeed in the world and became for us a symbol of business success. We will all miss him," Klaus said.
Bata's father, Tomas, founded the shoe empire in Zlin in 1894, and it would later swell into the giant Bata Shoe Organization.
Born Sept. 17, 1914, in Czechoslovakia, Thomas Bata's life was buffeted by the worst horrors of the 20th century.
He exiled himself in Canada in 1938 when the rise of Nazism forced him to flee his homeland. Seven years later, having served with the Canadian army on the battlefields, he returned to his freshly liberated birthplace, but not for long.
When the communists took over the country after World War II, they seized his factory and declared Bata a capitalist evil.
"I found it very sad," Bata told the Associated Press in a 2005 interview, "because what we thought was liberation really became a dictatorship of the communists."
The regime gave the company a new name and it went on making shoes, but it was Bata, headquartered in Toronto, that remained a byword for shoes.
Bata broadcast support to the dissident movement on Radio Free Europe and offered his business as a vision of what could be — "so that people would see that the democratic system, based on democratic economy, would be the most advantageous for them."
It took 40 years, but vindication finally came in 1989. As Eastern European communist dictatorships collapsed one by one, Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident leader and playwright turned president, asked Bata to come back.
"Vaclav Havel sent me a message through my wife and said, 'Tom should come as soon as he can,'" Bata recalled.
Cheering crowds greeted him at the airport in Prague on his arrival.
Havel awarded him the country's top decoration, the Tomas Garrigue Masaryk Order, in 1991, and he also received high Slovak and Canadian decorations. He last visited the Czech Republic in June.
Besides his business activities, Bata also served as chairman of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's business and advisory committee on non-members.
His son Thomas George Bata took over the shoe company from him in 2001.
He is survived by his wife, Sonja, his son and three daughters. Funeral arrangement were not immediately known.
Bata shoe empire magnate dies in Toronto
1 September, 2008. TheVancouverSun
TORONTO - Thomas Bata, the patriarch of one of the world's largest family-owned business empires, died in a Toronto hospital Monday. He was 93.
Bata, who fled to Canada ahead of the Nazi invasion of his native Czechoslovakia in 1939, ran the shoe-manufacturing company that bears his family name out of its Toronto headquarters for more than four decades overseeing its growth into a multinational organization that serves more than a million customers a day.
A spokesman for the company said Bata died early Monday morning at Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto, just two weeks before his 94th birthday.
Leslie Tenenbaum, lawyer for the company, did not give a cause of death and said that funeral arrangements were not immediately known.
Bata is survived by his wife, Sonja, a son and three daughters.
"One of the greatest personalities of our time has left," Czech President Vaclav Klaus said in a statement. "Despite ill fortune in his homeland, he managed to succeed in the world and became for us a symbol of business success. We will all miss him."
The empire was originally founded in 1894 by Bata's father Tomas, a ninth-generation cobbler, in the town of Zlin, about 300 kilometres east of Prague.
Tomas Bata died in a plane crash in 1932. Six years later, his son moved to Canada when the rise of Nazism forced him to flee his homeland.
After serving with the Canadian army during the Second World War, he returned to his newly liberated homeland at war's end only to find himself persona non grata with the Soviet-installed communist government.
The communists seized his factory and declared Bata an evil capitalist.
"What we thought was liberation really became a dictatorship of the communists," Bata told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview.
Bata Shoes carried on making shoes, but from its Canadian headquarters.
Under Bata's control it would later swell into the giant Bata Shoe Organization, operating more than 5,000 retail stores in more than 50 countries.
Bata Shoe Ltd. also operates 40 production facilities in 25 counties and employs more than 40,000 people.
He ran the shoe company from the 1940s into the 1980s, but retired from active participation in the company in 2001. His son Thomas G. Bata became chairman in 2001, but Bata self-deprecatingly described himself as the "interfering patriarch."
During the Cold War, Bata broadcast support to the dissident movement on Radio Free Europe and offered his business as a vision of what could be: "So that people would see that the democratic system, based on democratic economy, would be the most advantageous for them."
In 1989, after the Czech communist government fell, Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident leader and playwright turned president, asked Bata to come back.
"Vaclav Havel sent me a message through my wife and said, 'Tom should come as soon as he can,'" Bata recalled.
Cheering crowds greeted him at the airport in Prague on his arrival and Havel awarded him the country's top decoration.
Besides his business activities, Bata also served as chairman of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's business and advisory committee on non-members.
Wikipedia on Bata Shoes HERE.
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