04-24-2019, 11:17 AM
The "H" in H & R Block:
Henry Wollman Bloch (July 30, 1922 – April 23, 2019)[1] was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the co-founder and (since 2000)[1] the chairman emeritus of the American tax-preparation company H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Bloch was born to a Jewish family[2] in Kansas City, the son of Hortense (Bienenstock) and Leon Bloch.[3] He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City. He later attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduating in 1944. He was initiated as a brother of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity's Phi Chapter at the University of Michigan in 1940. [1] Through the U.S. Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Following the war in 1945, Bloch and his brother Leon founded United Business Company, joined later by his brother Richard in 1946 after Leon left to pursue a law degree. The company provided bookkeeping and tax preparation services in Kansas City, then expanded tax preparation services after a successful advertising campaign in the Kansas City Star and the Internal Revenue Service decision to phase out free preparation services. Bloch officially founded the H&R Block company with his brother Richard in 1955.
As Henry often explained in interviews, the misspelling in their corporate name of their surname was to reflect their family's proper pronunciation, as opposed to "blahch" or "blowch". By 1962, H&R Block became a public company, and in 2019, there are more than 12,000 H&R Block offices.[4] Bloch himself became a fixture for many years in television ads, delivering slogans like "Don't face the laws alone."[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_W._Bloch
Henry Wollman Bloch (July 30, 1922 – April 23, 2019)[1] was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the co-founder and (since 2000)[1] the chairman emeritus of the American tax-preparation company H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Bloch was born to a Jewish family[2] in Kansas City, the son of Hortense (Bienenstock) and Leon Bloch.[3] He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City. He later attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduating in 1944. He was initiated as a brother of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity's Phi Chapter at the University of Michigan in 1940. [1] Through the U.S. Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Following the war in 1945, Bloch and his brother Leon founded United Business Company, joined later by his brother Richard in 1946 after Leon left to pursue a law degree. The company provided bookkeeping and tax preparation services in Kansas City, then expanded tax preparation services after a successful advertising campaign in the Kansas City Star and the Internal Revenue Service decision to phase out free preparation services. Bloch officially founded the H&R Block company with his brother Richard in 1955.
As Henry often explained in interviews, the misspelling in their corporate name of their surname was to reflect their family's proper pronunciation, as opposed to "blahch" or "blowch". By 1962, H&R Block became a public company, and in 2019, there are more than 12,000 H&R Block offices.[4] Bloch himself became a fixture for many years in television ads, delivering slogans like "Don't face the laws alone."[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_W._Bloch
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.