Koss Corporation is mourning the loss of Nancy L. Koss, the wife of company founder John C. Koss. Mrs. Koss' image was captured in the original Koss Stereophones logo which featured the now famous "Hearing is Believing" trademark. She passed away peacefully on January 8, 2018 surrounded by her husband and family. "Our company was originally founded in 1953 by my parents Nancy and John Koss as The Koss Hospital Television Rental Company," Michael J. Koss, Chairman and CEO said in a brief announcement today. "Had my mother not supported the same entrepreneurial vision as my father, there would have been no way for the company to have ever been born."
Michael Koss went on to explain that his mother believed so much in John Koss and his plan to rent televisions to hospital patients, that she allowed him to risk their entire life savings to purchase fifty broken down televisions for repair. "It was clearly a 'Mom-and-Pop' operation at the beginning. If Mother had been skeptical, Dad's first idea might have been slid to the back burner."
In 1958, Nancy's unwavering faith helped create a product that changed the way people listen to music: the World's First SP/3 Stereophone. "Mother helped bake Royalite earcups for the headphones in her kitchen oven before cooking meals for father's musician friends that gathered in the basement to assemble those first models. I suppose that made her our first head of production at the same time that she was busy producing five children."
Michael Koss explained that Nancy Koss had five children in six years, and went on to became a Grandmother to fifteen grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. "My folks met and dated as teenagers, and were married for nearly sixty-six years," Koss continued. "She was father's soul mate, and the perfect mother." Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nancy Koss attended Atwater School, Shorewood High School, and the Layton School of Art. She served in local charities including The Boys and Girls Club, Junior Achievement and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
She was also a member of the Raleigh Tavern Society of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. "Mother's legacy lives on through her family, and through the company she helped bring to life," Michael Koss said. "She played an instrumental role in creating our American Dream."
