Class 2000
Michael Kittredge
In 1969, teenager Michael Kittredge made his first candle with melted crayons, a Christmas gift for his mother, in his family home in South Hadley. Even in those early days, family, friends, and neighbors raved about his creations and, as time went on, started buying them, not only for themselves, but as gifts for others. From the Kittredge home, then to an abandoned mill in Holyoke and finally in South Deerfield and Whately, Michael Kittredge’s early hobby has grown into the Yankee Candle Company, the nation’s premier scented candle designer, manufacturer, retailer and wholesaler, with more than 120 retail stores in 32 states and accounts in 12,500 gift stores. With the company expanding into England in 1999, the rest of the world is learning to love Yankee Candles, too.
When Mike Kittredge moved production to Holyoke, the mill he occupied had no running water or electricity. Today his Whately facility has 300,000 feet of the most modern production equipment available. The Yankee Candle Bavarian Christmas Village, Car Museum and Chandler’s Tavern in South Deerfield combine to make the facility the second most visited attraction in Massachusetts. In 1998, Michael Kittredge entered into a partnership with Forstmann Little Company and Yankee Candle later became a publicly traded corporation on the New York Stock Exchange ... a far cry from making candles from crayons on a South Hadley living room floor thirty years ago.
Michael Kittredge is a true entrepreneur. We are proud to induct this local native who made his mark and built his plant in Western Massachusetts into the Western Massachusetts Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.