STORY OF MAX & TRUDE HELLER

Story of Max and Trude Heller

Max and Trude Heller, known in the Greenville community as "doers" not "accumulators", have devoted their lives to public service.  Possessing a strong moral and ethical compass, they have led with humility, sharing love, mercy, and justice with others.  Max Heller, longtime Greenville mayor was a native of Austria who left his Nazi-occupied homeland in 1938 and came to Greenville to work as a stock boy at Piedmont Shirt Company.  He founded Maxon Shirt Company in 1948 and retired in 1969 to devote his time to public service.

In 2002, friends of Max and Trude Heller established an endowment in their honor for the purpose of encouraging service to the Greenville community. Furman University's Collegiate Educational Service Corps, founded in 1966, became the beneficiary of this endowment, allowing Furman students to expand and diversify their opportunities to serve Greenville. 

On June 13, 2011 the city of Greenville lost a champion in Max Heller. While we are saddened by his passing we are inspired to continue Max and Trude's legacy of changing lives and communities, one person at a time.