By Jack Fowler
Among Karen Wright’s pleasing attributes is that she may have a keener interest in Independence Day than most. Why might that be? Well, it can be hard to keep track. After all, Wright, an Ohio business titan, is many things. She is an innovative executive who engineered the awesome growth of Ariel Corporation. Under her leadership, it became the world’s largest gas-compressor manufacturer, an institution vital to America’s energy industry, and an integral part of getting natural gas from wellhead to stovetop. She is a mother of four — and grandmother of seven. She is a philanthropist. But, most relevant for our purposes, she was born on July 4. So was her son (named Sam, of course). So was her grandfather.
There is something homey and close and old-timey about it all. The birthday, personal and national. George Washington: his home, her home (company) town, (coincidentally) Mount Vernon — do you see a pattern here? Wright, also a cancer survivor, recently handed over Ariel’s day-to-day reins to its third generation of family operation and ownership. That makes Independence Day 2025 a good one to admire and reflect upon the doings, accomplishments, and even some philosophical thoughts of this unabashedly patriotic conservative. Of this great lady (this tough lady!) with a life of accomplishments worth knowing, and thoughts worth sharing.
Perhaps a good place to start is with POTUS No. 1. “George Washington mattered to me and to many others of my generation,” says Wright, chatting one sunny, late-spring morning in her peaceful home:
Because we were taught that he did the right thing, and that he was not too full of himself. We learned that he had an inadequate education, but that he acquired experiential confidence. He learned blacksmithing, surveying, whiskey-making, all aspects of farming, how to use timber, barrel-making, math, history, animal management, living rough. Even dancing. And of course soldiering — and fighting on horseback. To us he was the exemplary example of the American ideal.
And there was that presidency thing.
“I was already blessed by my birthday association with the Fourth of July. I have always felt such love for this nation,” Wright says. But her particular passion for the Father of Our Country was kept aflame by a then-popular children’s book — Augusta Stevenson’s George Washington, Boy Leader. Surely, it is a text to be canceled in today’s easily triggered publishing world. In the 1950s, however, the book, a paean, casually yet confidently told the popular tales of Young George. Washington’s storied embrace of virtues — civility, good manners, gratitude, and numerous others — stuck with a young Karen Wright. “‘I cannot tell a lie’ resonated deeply with me and many of my Baby Boomer cohort,” she says. It still does — as do the other tales. They attested to the man’s invaluable character.
“George Washington made me feel such love for this nation,” Wright says. “And we were so lucky to get him, instead of Pol Pot or Hitler of Khomeini or Stalin or Putin of Castro. History is rife with examples of leaders who took the path of evil.”
George, she notes, “listened to his mother,” a profound influence. “How lucky we were,” says Karen — herself an agent of motherly sway — that “all the influences on George Washington lead him to be the man he became, this extraordinary leader, the father of this first-in-history ideal of how civilization could be, opposed to how it had always been.”
She has a profound love for Mount Vernons, plural. One, the home of Washington. The other, the small Ohio city where she was born, raised, worked, and still lives. Both MVs loom large in the life of Karen Wright – or maybe, she looms large over them.
Start locally. The relentless success of Ariel Corporation, Mount Vernon’s largest employer, did not necessarily match the vibrance of the municipality (today it has a population of 16,956). Big companies, such as Pittsburg Plate Glass (PPG) and Cooper Industries, had once called it home, too. But manufacturing decline left behind devastation: hulking husks of abandoned factories set on large parcels. What were once economic forces had become festering blight.
Ariel’s fiscal feats matched the desperate need to stanch the town’s decline, and to engineer a revitalization. The mission is as accomplished as a work in progress can be. In 2009, Karen created the Ariel Foundation, a private family foundation (she is the board chairwoman) that would be funded in part by a slice (often healthy) of Ariel’s annual profits. Its mission would be to partner with local groups in Mount Vernon and Knox County “in promoting arts, culture, education, health & wellbeing while fostering community preservation balanced with community revitalization.”
Has any American town ever had such a determined corporate friend?
Jen Odenweller, the Ariel Foundation’s executive director, has run Ariel since its launch. She shares the total giving figures: In 15 years, Ariel has donated $97,944,286.83 to 697 local projects. The arts, civics, education, economic development, and health and human services are the wide-open areas it addresses.
Some of its projects are breathtaking in outcome. Witness the rehabilitation of the abandoned, rusty, glass-strewn PPG facility ruins — now the tourist destination Ariel Foundation Park.
There’s a lot more than mere check-writing here. The board and staff of Ariel Foundation are often intimately involved with the projects it endorses. For example, with the Foundation’s stage-managing, downtown Mount Vernon saw the rebuild (with AF funds) of a former town square eyesore that is now the lovely Mount Vernon Grand Hotel. This was then turned over to Mount Vernon Nazarene University, giving it a source of revenue (and a cheerful place for visitors to stay).
Other structures strategically rehabbed by Ariel Foundation generosity have given downtown footprints to Kenyon College and Central Ohio Technical College — yeah, there is cool youth vibe downtown that wasn’t there a decade ago. And still more: The YMCA, the Woodward Opera House (it proudly claims to be “America’s Oldest Authentic 19th Century Theater still standing”), the local hospital (expanded recently by the Wright Family Medical Pavilion), and the whimsical Dog Fountain. Even mundane needs such as municipal snow removal can fall under the foundation’s remit. There seems to be not a thing in the revival of Mount Vernon, Ohio — which has so obviously gotten off the canvas to fight another round — that the largesse of Karen Wright, personally and then also through the Ariel Foundation, has not underwritten and guided.
If you conclude that Karen Wright has a big heart, you are correct. If you imagine her philanthropy stops on the banks of the Kokosing River, you are incorrect. By her own estimate (one pried out by an inquisitive questioner), she has likely spread over $200 million in generosity (hardly ever of the “token” variety) to numerous freedom-loving institutions. These would include National Review Institute (on whose board she serves), Media Research Center, the Conservative Partnership Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and dozens more conservative groups.
But then there is that one special, distant passion, that other Mount Vernon, which is a source of Karen Wright’s patriotic zeal, and a beneficiary of her gratitude.
“I believe I was poised and set up to love Mount Vernon because of the place where I was born, and of course because of the day on which I was born,” she says. She also loves the story of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, founded by Ann Pamela Cunningham (“I love her gumption and the continuation of that determination up to this day”), which for over 160 years has seen to the restoration and rehabilitation of George Washington’s historic homestead. That story, she says, “confirms yet again the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”
Her first foray into support of Mount Vernon was tiny, in Wright terms: $1,000 in 2005, in response to an appeal to build an education center on the estate. Since then, the philanthropist/bibliophile (she even supports a bookstore in her hometown) made a major 2013 gift that gave the George Washington Presidential Library its astonishing Karen Buchwald Wright Reading Room. One account described it thus:
Where sun sprayed glass, offering a view of grass-green and tree-rich grounds, gold and brown colors, desks and comfortable chairs are presided over by Houdon-like busts of Washington and his contemporaries, an array of all-stars that include Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison and Adams.
And in 2023, with Mount Vernon undertaking a Mansion Revitalization project, Karen provided a $1 million matching gift challenge grant.
Surely other checks have been written. Why?
For the obvious reasons:
It has been my joy and honor to be associated with Mount Vernon Ladies Association, and with Mount Vernon itself, and with the extraordinary man who imagined and set the example of what America could be and indeed became — a country of people with the freedom to pursue their dreams, to be civil, to abide by the law applied equally to all, regardless, to live in harmony with so many different people, never done before, and to be a beacon of hope for humanity. Without the extraordinary man, George Washington, it would not have happened. And Mount Vernon Ladies Association is also extraordinary.
Another reason, perhaps, is a sense of predestiny, or patriotic kismet. “I was further determined or preordained because my grandfather and fourth son were also born on the Fourth of July. He is now Uncle Sam to my seven granddaughters.” Call it a non sequitur if you want, but the thought concludes: “Mount Vernon is a sacred space that George Washington loved. It permeates this place.”
If Karen Wright had been a liberal, who had achieved what she did in turning Ariel Corporation into a major global business, she would be a media darling. Attractive, articulate, and funny, too, she would have been giving Ted Talks and backslapping on The View.
But Karen Wright is a conservative. In the mainstream media, and the places where that brand is disdained, there is no room for attention. And that is too bad, because she has something to say. More than something — plenty to say.
If paneling at the Aspen Institute or some such venue, she would be asked: So, tell us how you did it, girl! What’s Karen’s secret sauce? What are the methods and notions and strategies that you crafted and brainstormed and implemented to enlarge this company, and to make it an industry leader and on top of all that a place of seeming happiness? Or was it just luck?
No, it wasn’t luck. Nor was it conjured out of the ether: Ariel had a strong platform when Karen took over from its founder, her father, the late Jim Buchwald, who was determined that the company have an intentional culture and a happy workforce. He cared about his employees (and about America, too – Jim was a super patriot).
Karen built on that, and added her XX strength to the XY status quo. Her managerial style, and studied approach to seeing Ariel thrive, mixed common sense, humility, an embrace of responsibility, and realization that the office and the factory floor can be a happy place. It emphasized articulation and engagement and thinking, literally, about family. Someday, if business schools are lucky, if corporate America is lucky, she will write a book laying out her nuggets of wisdom. Until then, herewith we share a handful from a bounty she shared with us:
• Care about your employees. Don’t ignore the fact that they’re people and have the same feelings as you do.
• Understand that your employees are counting on you to do what’s best for them and the company. Their lives are dependent on what you do. You’re responsible to and for them.
• Understand you must have a team of experts because you don’t know everything.
• Have at least two to three annual company meetings to share the state of the company, the market, the future as you see it. The underlying message is: I’m paying attention, I have a good team, and I’m watching out for all of you as best I can. Be genuine. Truly care. Do not tell your team everything as an order. Allow discussion. Pay attention to body language in order to spot disagreement.
• Don’t surround yourself with yes men. And don’t forget that the spouses of your team members are the other half of your team. Value them and let them know you value them. The members of your team look to their partners to be their support, and to help them concentrate on their jobs because it’s impossible to have a full life alone.
• Do social activities with your team. Dinners, sporting events, travel, dance lessons — whatever you think will be fun and will allow people to see each other as friends. Not everyone will like each other equally, but they will understand the whole person, not just the work person. Include spouses when appropriate. Your people go home and talk about the people they work with. It’s helpful to get a spouse’s perspective.
Who wouldn’t want to work for an intentional company like that? And who wouldn’t be proud, even thrilled, to live in a country where we are blessed to have such intentional, generous, and patriotic — and consequential! — people like Karen Wright. Blessings counted!
Whether the 70-something, community-loving, country-adoring, George Washington BFF agent of generosity and business genius has a post-Ariel next big act is unknown. But we do indeed hope for and await Karen Wright 2.0. And while hoping and awaiting, we will also be celebrating, on this July 4, not only the anniversary of our Independence, but the birthday of this (with apologies to Mr. Cohan) real live niece of our Uncle Sam.
Happy birthday, Karen. And many more.