Wayne Vaughan established Vaughan Walls in the late 1950’s to respond to a product need he perceived. Why not develop a wall system that can be assembled and re-assembled using this new technology of gypsum wallboard. Vaughan Walls developed and maintained over five basic wall systems with hundreds of variations and customizations for a multitude of differing customers across the US. Vaughan Walls built up a contractor network of over 75 contractors in the nation, in all the major and some not-so-major markets. In the 70’s, Vaughan Walls was considered the finest quality of construction wall systems manufacturers.

In 1981, Herman Miller approached Vaughan Walls in regards to their 2¼” wall system known as series 700 movable wall. Herman Miller and Vaughan teamed up to develop specialized component products to add to the 700 series wall to make it support Herman Miller’s Action Office System. Herman Miller bought the Vaughan Company in 1982 and moved it to Dallas, Texas. The wall was made compatible for supporting hanging components as well as methods for structural attachment of systems panels. Several of the key designers were involved in the design and improvements to the wall system including Bill Stumpf and Tom Newhouse with Dave Roblin providing the overall engineering support.

In addition to the functionality of the product changes, aesthetic changes included fabric or vinyl cover corners in both a square or radius detail. A true system of finished product vocabulary was developed to help communicate the system that is still used today. Like Herman Miller, Vaughan Walls never made any product obsolete and the products’ marriage was simple.

Herman Miller rolled Vaughan Walls into their mainstream in 1987, trying to maximize the impact with all the Herman Miller product lines. In 1993, Service Center Associates, Inc. was established to manage the products lines for Herman Miller as an Alliance partner, specializing in the aspects of Architecture and Design community.

In the 90’s, product enhancements continued including furniture matching base trims, additional CMF options, additional cabling management capability, 8-wire four circuit electrical system and finally, a relocatable pre-glazed panel capability.