Wallace E. Brown is president of the Grand Rapids Varnish Corporation, one of the important industrial concerns of Grand Rapids, and his long experience has made him an authority in the paint and varnish business, for which he may well be said to have had inherited predilection, in view of the fact that his father, Jesse S. Brown, was a master of the painter’s trade, as was also his grandfather, Smith M. Brown, who maintained his home at Highland, Oakland county, Michigan. Other representatives of the Brown family likewise gained high reputation for skill in painting and graining, especially in imitating most effectively the graining of various woods used in interior building construction. Wallace E. Brown was born in Muskegon county, Michigan, and was a child at the time of the family removal to Fremont, Newaygo county, where he gained in the public schools his early educational discipline and where his father, Jesse S. Brown, was long engaged in business as a skilled master painter. Under the careful direction of his father, Wallace E. Brown learned with utmost thoroughness the painter’s trade, in which he was able to uphold fully the prestige of the family name. At different times he was foreman in the finishing department of leading furniture factories throughout the country, and later he continued his association with the paint industry by effective service as a commercial traveling salesman in turn for the Barrett-Lindermann Company, of Philadelphia, and the Lilly Varnish Company, of Indianapolis. In 1915 Mr. Brown effected in Grand Rapids the organization of the Grand Rapids Varnish Company, of which he is the president, and of which A. D. McBurney of Jackson is vice-president, Fred W. Green of Ionia treasurer, and Herman F Harbeck of Grand Haven secretary. In the modern and well-equipped manufacturing plant of the company at 565 Godfrey avenue, southwest, is now retained a force of over one hundred operatives, each skilled in his assigned province of work, and the high-grade paints, varnishes, lacquers and enamels here manufactured are now sold in all sections of the United States. Mr. Brown has proved a progressive and resourceful executive and it has been primarily due to his methods and policies that his company has gained rank as one of the important industrial concerns of Grand Rapids