Claire G. Ely (1905-2004) was an employee of the Maytag company for forty-one years. He worked for the Kansas City Branch and then was transferred to Newton, Iowa upon his promotion in 1952 to Manager of Product and Market Planning, eventually becoming Vice President of Marketing.

Ely was born in Osage, Iowa. He was a graduate of the St. Ansgar, Iowa Senior High School, and later attended the University of Minnesota. In 1924, at the age of nineteen, Ely started as a retail salesman for a Minneapolis Maytag dealer, later becoming the general sales manager.

He joined the Maytag Company in 1929 as a Regional Manager of the Minneapolis branch serving territory in Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin, and South Dakota. In 1945, he became assistant branch manager of the Maytag Kansas City branch. The manager was George H. Ireland (1863-1951), who retired in 1947, and Ely was promoted to manager.

In 1951, parts of Kansas and Missouri experienced severe flooding due to excessive rainfall and lack of flood protection, it is known as the Great Flood of 1951. The flooding took place between July 13 and July 20 and resulted in seventeen deaths, over five hundred thousand people displaced, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage.

Ely developed a rehabilitation program to aid flood victims. This effort caught the attention of Fred Maytag II and other executives at the company. In 1952, the company reorganized by splitting its Sales Department into two, in an effort to expand its Distribution Division. One was devoted to distribution, the logistics of the physical movement of all finished goods under the direction of the General Sales Manager, Verne Martin (1893-1973). The second was devoted to overall planning overseen by Claire G. Ely as the Manager of Market and Product Planning. John H. Evans (1901-1994) succeeded Ely as Branch Manager at the Kansas City Branch. Evans had been Regional Manager in Cleveland.

Ely and his family moved to Newton, Iowa. There he assumed his position as Manager of Market and Product Planning reporteding to Roy A. Bradt (1893-1989), Vice President of Marketing. In. 1954, Ely was made General Sales Manager and in 1957, upon Bradt’s retirement, Ely became Vice President of Marketing. In 1962, he became a member of the board of directors of the Corporation and in 1970, Ely retired from the Maytag Corporation.

On October 16, 1926, Ely married Dorothy Moeller (1905-1996) in St. Paul, Minnesota. The couple had two children.

The Maytag Corporation manufactures home appliances, most well known for its washing machines, also produces dryers, dishwashers, cooktops, refrigerators, and ranges.

In 1893, the company was founded by F.L. (Frederick Louis) Maytag I (1857–1937), his two brothers-in-law and George W. Parsons. The company was originally named Parsons Band-Cutter & Self Feeder Company and produced threshing machines, band-cutters and self-feeder attachments. F.L. Maytag became the sole proprietor of the company and renamed it Maytag Company.

Appliances were developed to supplement sales during seasonal downturns in the farm equipment sales. In 1905, Maytag's first washing machine, the "Pastime", was produced, which had a wooden tub and relied upon pulleys and a hand crank to operate the machine. The Maytag washing machine evolved over time to be motorized and have a porcelain, aluminum or steel tub.

F.L. Maytag stepped down in 1920 and his son, L. B. Maytag (1888–1967), began serving as company president. The company became the Maytag Washing Machine Company in 1925. E.H. (Elmer Henry) Maytag, (1883–1940) another son of F.L. Maytag, served as president from 1926 until his death in 1940. That same year, Frederick Louis Maytag II (1911–1962), E.H. Maytag’s son became Maytag's head at the age of twenty-nine.

During World War II, Maytag ceased production of washing machines and contributed to the war effort by manufacturing components for military airplanes. When the war ended washing machine manufacturing resumed, and Maytag began selling ranges and refrigerators.

In 1944, Maytag began seeking a manufacturer of gas ranges that Maytag would distribute. In September of 1945, Maytag purchased a large share of the Globe American Corp, a stove and range manufacturing company. Globe American Corp manufactured the Maytag Dutch Oven at its plant in Kokomo, Indiana.

Upon the death of F. L. Maytag II in 1962, George M. Umbreit (1901-1972) became chairman of the board and chief executive officer, and E.G. Higdon (1909-1988) was named president. In 1972, Daniel J. Krumm (1926-1993) succeeded E.G. Higdon as Maytag president and treasurer, and two years later he was named chief executive officer. On December 22, 2005 Maytag stockholders agreed to sell Maytag to Whirlpool Corporation, ending Maytag's 112-year history as an independent company.