Wallace F. Bennett - Business Career

Business Career

In 1920, Bennett returned to Salt Lake City and became an office clerk at Bennett's Paint and Glass Company, which his father had established. He was later advanced to cashier, production manager, and sales manager. He became secretary-treasurer of the company in 1929 and, following his father's death in 1938, became president and general manager. He served in that position until 1950, when he became chairman of the board. In 1938, the company completed what Bennett described as the most modern paint manufacturing plant in the West.

In addition to his work in his family's business, Bennett organized a Ford dealership known as the Bennett Motor Company, serving as its president from 1939 to 1950. He also served as president of the Cardon Jewelry Company and of the National Glass Distributors Association; vice-president of Glayton Investment Company and of the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association; and director of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, the Utah Oil Refining Company, and the Utah Home Fire Insurance Company. In 1949, he was elected president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He spent his year-long tenure as president traveling the country, preaching "the partnership of the men who put up the money, the men who do the work, and the men who tie the whole thing together."

He hosted a daily one-hour program called The Observatory Hour on KSL (1932–1933), and was president of the Salt Lake Civic Opera Company (1938–41) and the Salt Lake Community Chest (1944–1945). In 1935, he became treasurer of the Latter-day Saints Sunday School General Board. He directed the chorus of student nurses of LDS Hospital (1942–48), and wrote the words to God of Power, God of Right which is Hymn #20 in the 1985 Latter-day Saints Hymnal. He authored Faith and Freedom (1950) and Why I am a Mormon (1958).