Van Wagenen became general manager in January, 1918. Marchant remained as superintendent and Valentine was reelected president, now mainly an honorary post. But Van Wagenen was in complete charge during the trying last year of the war. The substantial profit and dividend which the operations produced in that troubled period earned him high praise and a large salary increase. In January, 1920, he was elected president and general manager. A strong capable hand was once more at the helm.
With the European war over, the directors could now forget the tensions of the preceding years and turn to the problems of the postwar years.
–Harry Poindexter

The appearance of Van Wagenen brought the mill in line with a trend within the woolen industry which had been underway since the turn of the century. Prior to1900, technical direction or American woolen mills was largely in the hands of man who had grown up in the industry. Now graduates of textile schools filled more and more of these positions. They brought not only a divorce of management from stockownership but a new
experimental attitude as well. While Van Wagenen probably never attended a technical school, he did resemble these people: he owned no stock at the time of his employment, and after the war he showed a readiness to launch out into new processes and to discard time honored ways of doing things.–Harry Poindexter