Alan Hassenfeld to retire into Non-Employee Status

Hasbro has made a statement about its long-time Chairman of the Board of directors, Alan Hassenfeld. Taking effect from Januari 1st 2006, Alan Hassenfeld will step down as Active Employee.

Hassenfeld (56) will still remain active within the Board of Directors, but shall take up the function as a non-employee for the company. After 35 years of service to Hasbro, he shall now concentrate his efforts as leading guide for the company in its future endeavours.

Hassenfeld is a third generation CEO for Hasbro, a family owned company that started in 1923 as Hassenfeld Brothers, which mainly dealt in production of School accessories. In the 60's the company started to concentrate its efforts in toys, rather then school equipment. Stephen Hassenfeld directed the company into creating toy lines like GI Joe, from which eventually with aid from Takara the Transformers developed. When Stephen Hassenfeld died in the late 80's, Alan took over from his brother to give the final say in what happened with Hasbro toy-lines, including the Transformers.

One of Alan Hassenfeld's most recent involvements with the Transformers was giving the green light to Dreamworks and Angry Films to start production on the live action version of the Transformers movie.