David R. Cress worked for Parker's Technical Division for twenty years and was involved in many projects, some lead to finished pen models, some ideas were never put into production. He was involved in devising processes like injection molding, screen printing, sputtering, decorative hot stamping and powder coating. He also spent a couple of years in the product developement department working on a desk base, a gold nib designed by Devlin, which didn't make it into production, and was also involved in the developement of the Systemark, among many other things.
He also holds a patent for Parker working with a Teflon-filled Delrin nib (an acetal homopolymer resin plastic). He worked as a quality engineer from 1981 until 1983 with the entire second floor of Arrow Park as his responsability and was eventually promoted to Quality Audit Manager for the entire plant.
After leaving Parker he received 12 additional patents while working at Amerock.
Mr Cress has kindly allowed me to publish his booklet The Parker Technical Division 1960 to 1980, in it's entirety. The following is copyrighted © 2007 by David R. Cress:
Drawing: Technical Division
“Research Building”
by Robert Douglas 1999
RESEARCH
The Research Department had the following Laboratories: Chemistry -- Physics, Plastics, Metallurgy, Ball Pen Ink Lab., and Basic Studies Laboratory. There was a Department Head (Ray Lawton most distinguished, who was there before 1950) and scientists, some with PhD’s, running the laboratories with numerous technicians doing the bulk of the experiments.
TECHNICAL SERVICES
The Technical Services Department consisted of the following: Library, In-Pen Test Section, Instrumentation, Materials Test Section and the Photo Laboratory. All standardized pen and ink testing, analyzing materials (infrared, UV, and x-ray) and support work was done here. Forrest Beck, who had done considerable ink development, was Department Head the longest. The figure eight write test machines, with twelve pens per side, were always running.
The New Process Development Department took new, emerging technologies and advanced them to the point where production could use them to make writing instruments. Some of the technologies (which will be covered in more detail later) were plastic injection molding, plastic extrusion of writing tips, screen-printing, powdered metal fabrication, powdered plastic coating, and sputtering. Robert Burkhalter and Alton Schlegel were Department Heads. I worked in this department over thirteen years.
PRODUCT ENGINEERING
The Product Engineering Department was the main area for designing and creating new and unique writing instruments. There was a Department Head (Frank Meinhardt most renown) and numerous engineers, technicians, and draftsmen. All engineering specifications were officially transferred to production (mostly by Larry Pierce). They had prolific, creative outside industrial designers who brought in elegant renderings. I worked in this department for almost five years.
MODEL SHOP
The Model Shop is were all the prototypes were made. Ronald “Snub” Freeman was the Model Shop supervisor the longest (from 1960 to 1979); followed by Carl Klawitter. Before Snub the supervisors were Bob Rudin, Sam Helgeson and Jerry Flynn. There were numerous machinists and jewelers, crafting the unique writing instruments with very fine detail. They made many slight variations of new designs and these would be shown to hundreds of people. This market research is what made the final versions so salable.
Most people couldn’t even see the few thousands of an inch difference, but they would consistently pick one as the best looking. A lot of money was spent on this type of evaluating small aesthetic differences. They also produced many large 4x scale pen models. A large model of the Jotter ball pen was exhibited at the 1964 New York World Fair.
EXTRA-ORDINARY PEOPLE
When I started at Parker in 1963 there were 73 people in the Technical Division, 26 were salaried and the rest hourly. By 1968 there were 59 employees and by 1970 the division was down to 53 employees. In 1975 the division was back to 58 employees. More than thirty of these employees were there this entire 18 years or longer. They were a close-knit group of people who still are friends to this day. Every summer all the families got together for a big potluck picnic and at Christmas the Technical Division had it’s own party, even though there was a big Parker office party for the non-union employees. This group of people, with spouses, still gets together every May, even though the number is starting to dwindle. It was the 21st “reunion” in 2006. Retirees came from as far away as Arkansas, Texas and California in one year. Six of the old timers from Janesville still get together every month.
To get a salaried position in the division, as part of the interview process, a prospective employee would have to go to Chicago for a full day of psychological and intelligence tests. There were three tests: 1. Wonderlic Personnel Test, 2. SRA Non-Verbal Test, and 3. McMurry-Johnson Number Relations Test. To be hired, you had to get over 90% to 95% in two of the three tests ( I learned this later, when I retook the tests in 1966). In addition to intelligence, they hired an honest, trusting, stable bunch of individuals. Professional Development was encouraged. Chuck McDermott the psychologist from Chicago came every other month to lead workshops on improving individual’s skills.
ENGINEERING SUMMER STUDENTS
Parker hired college engineering students to work during the summer on short term projects. This was beneficial to the student and company as it let them evaluate the individual for possible full time employment when they graduated. Many of the summer students eventually became long-term employees: including Joe Branks, Bob Douglas, Gerald Herold, Jerry Kelly, Alton Schlegel and myself.
I was lucky enough to be hired two summers. In 1961 I worked as a technician helping Paul Johnson on a process to help prevent cracking in the Parker “61” collector shells. As I recall it was a cryogenic treatment. The plastic was “X-100” a proprietary plastic alloy of Plexiglas acrylic and Cycolac ABS. One somewhat boring task I did was put a tiny mark on the inside of two shells at a time with hot needles. This was done so returns could be identified, to determine if the process helped. In 1962 I had two engineering projects: devising a heat test to determine stress in molded plastic parts and a new molding process for “61” collector shells.
One requirement of all projects done in the Technical Division was writing a comprehensive report at the end of the project (even summer students). These reports included photographs, graphs, bibliography and were usually 50 to 100 pages long. For the successful projects, these reports were used to transfer the technical details to manufacturing. Over 1 200 of these reports were written over the years the Division was in existence. I wrote 27 during my 20 years at Parker. Yes, they all had a heavy “Blue” cover.
SPI and LEGAL NOTEBOOKS
All the procedures and required forms used in the Division were written down and in a “STANDARD PRACTICE INSTRUCTION” (SPI) booklet, one for each employee. Included in the procedures were practices such as Sample Numbering. Every incoming raw material or outgoing prototype had to have a number assigned to it. Each department and Laboratory had their own letter-number combination such as P-1234 for Product Engineering and D-1234 for New Process Development. Traceability was important. All testing procedures had a performance test specification number. The pocket test was an interesting one. A small cardboard drum held a cloth “pocket” with typical pocket or purse items, like keys and coins. A new plastic component or new plated finish would be tumbled for eight hours and then examined for wear (equivalent to a year in use.) A perspiration soak test was done using an artificial sweat that had urea, sodium chloride and lactic acid in it. Most pens and refills also had to withstand a “super cycle test”, a 100 cycles of alternating between a freezer and a 140° F (60° C). oven and still write.
Creativity and innovation was stressed and encouraged. We were allowed to spend 5% to 10% of our time on projects that we thought might have merit, without getting approval. I had an interest in games, so was allowed to make prototypes of three different game/toy ideas (“Triapath” board game, “Checkmaze” puzzle/game and magnetic road race.) Panoramic, a Parker Subsidiary, even made fancy prototype boxes for them. These were presented to the Company management in 1967. In trying to get the company interested in games, I discovered they had looked into it earlier. I found a Blue Cover Report entitled “An Investigation and Study of the Toy, Game and Hobby Industry as a Diversification Possibility for the Parker Pen Company” compiled by Anderson and Associates. After serious consideration, the Company said “no” to games, but in 1970, gave me the rights to the inventions.
FACILITIES & EQUIPMENT
Most of the Research Laboratories were spread through the three floors of an older red brick building, shown on the cover, which was torn down about 1980. This building was attached to the downtown Janesville corporate offices that also housed the Model Shop, NPD and Product Engineering. The laboratories always had the most up to date equipment. When I started they had mechanical calculators. About 1970 we got the first electronic calculators: Wang Laboratory networked calculators, about one foot in size — and they couldn’t even do square roots. George Tucker got one of the first computers with a hard drive. I remember it being about half the size of a desk and only had an 8k memory.
Our own photo lab turned out all the photographs for the blue cover reports until Xerox copy machines came out. Materials were tested in-house on infrared & UV visible spectrometry and x-ray diffraction. We did sputter coating and had our own mass spectrometer. When scanning electron microscopes came out, we used the technology extensively and eventually purchased one. In 1978 we even had a PhD physicist, Tom Chung, working solely to optimize the texture of the tungsten carbide roller pen balls. In the 50’s when the Jotter first came out, I believe the balls had diamond dust in them as an advertising gimmick.
Before 1960 the Model Shop was in the basement of this red brick building.
Everyone wore company lab coats, which were sent out to be washed every week. The Model Shop employees wore heavy work aprons with pockets for micrometers.
TRAVEL
Engineers and scientists were allowed to go to pertinent seminars, and all large technical shows in Chicago. Usually we went to at least one major national technical event each year. In 1968 I went to Las Vegas for an Association for Computing Machinery conference, to learn about computer recognition of handwriting. Gerald Herold and I went to New York City in 1978 to attend the WIMA meeting (Writing Instrument Manufacturing Association). In 1981 we had Sanford Research Institute work on a new “Liquid Lead”. I flew to California while working on that project. Bob Burkhalter flew to Germany to procure a dye. The Parker Technical Division was a great place to work. The Scanlon bonus plan and vacations were also excellent.
UNUSUAL PROJECTS
In November 1963 the Technical Division received a government contract to help MIT develop a powdered metal retainer for ball bearings used in the inertial guidance systems on the Titan missiles. Most people didn’t know about this, as it was classified “secret”. It was an interesting project. I was assigned as an engineering research assistant and got to help on all phases of the development. Frank Hill was the primary metallurgist, Bob Douglas did the analytical calculations (physics) and Dr. Lawerence Talley was the program manager. We traveled to Boston a couple times to visit MIT in Cambridge and had to put smocks over our clothes and shoes before going into their clean rooms. The project wasn’t a success, but it did open doors for additional government contracts, which they had up until 1980. Bob Burkhalter remembers burning secret documents when he left. A couple of Bob Burkhalter and Frank Hill’s unusual projects for Picatinny Arsenal, in NJ, were working on a one inch diameter ball for Army tank turrets and developing a way to process tungsten to make armor piercing artillery shells. Jerry Flynn remembers Fred Perlin “working on 30 caliber “spotter rounds”; shells that would show a burst of light when hitting a target.”
Bob Burkhalter remembers working on “secret writing” for the government, which now can be bought in toy spy pen kits. The special ball pen ink disappears when blown on with an acidic breath. Then when you want to see it, you take a basic substance like soap and rub over it to make it visible again.
Before 1950, the engineers (David Chapman, Fred Perlin and Bill Hyzer) created a miniature camera (size around 1” x 2” x 3”) and about 100 prototypes were made (patent D160300). It took an eight exposure 16mm film cartridge. One reason it never went to market was that Kodak wouldn’t produce film for Parker. They also developed and tried to sell refillable butane lighters. Making synthetic marble bathroom counter tops was explored, as well as making fiber reinforced fishing poles. These are just a few more examples of the Technical Division working on items way ahead of their time.
Snub Freeman was involved in the making of a large silver desk base for Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was about 18” by 10” and held two “51” pens, that had special ground nibs; one right-handed and one left-handed. Mounted on the silver plate were 24 small stones from the places Dwight had lived. It has the initials ”DDE” and five stars. They prematurely had the White House engraved on it before he was president, and had to meticulously remove it, only later to add it back.
Snub remembers the first Model Shop being above the main entrance on Court Street and “watching out the window to see Kenneth Parker driving up in a Green Lincoln sports car at exactly 7:30 am sharp every morning.” Snub also told how frugal the senior George S. Parker was. “He would go around checking peoples wastebaskets to see if they used both sides of the paper.”
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The visionary head of the Technical Division from in the 1950’s until 1975 was Fred R. Wittnebert, who had invented the capillary fill pen before he came to Parker (which eventually became the Parker 61). Fred received over sixteen patents in his lifetime, six of these patents he got before coming to Parker. Jerry Flynn told the story of how Fred was hired. “Fred had an interview with Kenneth Parker on a Saturday. He showed Kenneth a portfolio of all the things he had worked on; gyroscopes, P.T. boats, railroad instruments and on the last page was a capillary pen that filled itself. Kenneth got so excited when he saw this, he phoned Ivan Tefft on the golf course and had him come right in to draw up a contract with Fred. Kenneth asked Fred where he was going next and when Fred told him Fort Madison Iowa, Kenneth offered him $4,000 to not go, and hired him on the spot.”
Fred’s assistant director of the Division was Bernie Ryle. He was the reason Dr. Lawerence Talley "joined the staff at Parker. Prior to coming to Parker, Larry served as a research scientist with operations in the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), one of which was FMPC (Feed Materials Production Center) located in Fernald, OH. The main product of this facility was “yellow cake” which is later refined into metal. At that facility, Bernie Ryle was Larry’s group leader and they worked together on several major projects. Some of which were published in the “Journal of the American Chemical Society.” When Bernie left FMPC he asked Larry to join the staff at Parker. The technical division had just established its instrumentation laboratory— including an IR4 spectrometer, which was, at the time, Larry’s field of expertise.”**
Frank Meinhardt was one of the developers of the Jotter T ball pen with the textured ball. He was at Parker over 30 years and was head of Product Engineering for over 15 years. He received two patents while at Parker. The T ball patent was #3303825 (co-inventor Robert Schuman). With a microscope Frank enlarged the textured ball surface; counted the grains and determined the percent of porosity. Frank also worked on the Liquid lead pencil and helped with many of the fountain pen designs. He was a perfectionist. I remember him telling me about sifting the dirt in his front lawn to remove the stones. His last position was Director of Special Studies.
Clem A. Sonntag another 30 year Product Engineer worked on the sterling silver “75” fountain pen, an adjustable flow “75” pen, “21” successor fountain pen, Ink cartridges, Demi “45” fountain pen, International Classic ball pen, and Nixon desk bases. He received six patents: two for the “Tap Tank Ink Cartridge”(#3237606 & #3332400), the “school pen” and Ball Point Pen designs. Clem taught me about “cap pumping”. All fountain pen caps need a tiny groove in them, to relieve air pressure, when taken off. Otherwise the vacuum created, will suck ink out and the pen will leak A story Clem told was about going into the Model Shop and hearing all kinds of noise coming from model maker Elmer Knotbalm’s bench. When Clem asked him, Elmer said “If you can’t do good work, make a lot of noise.”
Robert L. Kuranz started in 1956 and spent 33 years at Parker. He was the ink specialist and worked on all ball pen and fountain pen inks as well as the ball pen grease follower, Touché refill, and improvement studies. He received one patent while at Parker. Jerry Kelly and Robert did extensive thin layer chromatography studies on all brands of fountain pen ink. These were used to aide in determining dates of written documents. After leaving Parker, Bob worked for various lawyers authenticating written documents and helping to uncover forgeries. Bob’s most famous case was proving a “Jack the Ripper” Diary as a fake. The forger was smart enough to get ink from a Company that makes old formulations, but it had a mold inhibitor in it that wasn’t in ink in 1889. Bob Kuranz was also on the Parker Community Credit Union Board for 26 years. Jerry Kelly left Parker and used his ink expertise at the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory.
Product Engineer E. Dale Thompson came from the Shaffer Pen Company in 1970 and worked on the Tiffany Classic, high quality slim line, anodized aluminum, Queen Elizabeth pen, new Coronet and desk bases. He received two patents while at Parker. All new engineers in product engineering got to work on desk bases — it was one of my first projects when I transferred into Product Engineering.
Product Engineer A. Robert Goepfert was in the Technical Division about five years. He worked on the 49 cent wick pen, upgraded Touché II, Place Vendome, and super flow Jotter refill. He left in about 1970. He remembers Frank Meinhardt as “always having his watch set exactly seven minutes fast.”
Two of the long term designers Martin Wacha and Harley Jung each received three design
patents while at Parker. Martin is currently on the Parker community Credit Union board.
Jerry Flynn a 38 year employee of the Parker Pen Company worked in many Divisions. He started in the experimental group at Gilman and when bought out by Parker in1956, he came to the Model Shop. After heading up the Model Shop, he was in charge of the Special Products Division, then Trent Engineering and eventually into management at Arrow Park.
Joe Branks was a mechanical engineering summer student in 1955 and went into the military before he came back to Parker full time. One of Joe’s unusual projects about 1960 was developing a more efficient outboard motor propeller with a round sleeve or duct around it. He and Ken Kelsh got paid to spend a big part of two summers boating on the Rock River. They did drag tests of various materials and different aerodynamic shapes by pulling them behind the boat. At the time Parker Pen also owned two small boat companies in Florida that made 22/24 foot long “Gulf Boats”. They also worked on the first jet drive for a boat, a noisy 7 ½ hp Garelli single piston motor.
Joe moved into product engineering in the early 70’s and was one of the developers of the universal refill, which was called Systemark when first introduced and now called Vector Roller Ball. The first injection molds for the plastic collectors was made from stacked shim stock, as thin as .005 inch, not much thicker than a piece of paper. Parker’s patent is #3951555, with inventors listed as: Fred Wittnebert, Frank Meinhardt, Joe Branks, Gerald Herold and Dan Stambaugh.
Robert Burkhalter started at Parker in 1952 before the summer student program began. Bob graduated first in his engineering class from the University of Wisconsin. Bob and Art Perry started one of the first plastic injection molding laboratories in the country and wrote papers for the Society of Plastic Engineers ANTEC journal. This “Joint Molding” laboratory at Arrow Park, was first run by Willy Techesen and Walt Georgie. I started work there in 1963, where we studied molding and design parameters to improve and make stronger plastic components. Screw injection molding came along about 1964, and Parker bought the second one made in the country and used it to make significantly improved components over the older plunger molding machines.
obert Burkhalter told me that “The first Japanese roller balls didn’t work because they used a dye with salt in it. They tried to copy our ink, but since salt doesn’t show up in an infrared spectrometer test, it took them a while to figure that out.” Robert went to Sanford after leaving Parker in 1980 and was in charge of their engineering group. I joined him there in 1983.
Alton Schlegel started at Parker in 1957 as a summer student in the plastics laboratory and then started full time in the Metallurgy Laboratory in January 1958. He eventually became Director of the Corporate Technical Center.
Robert Burkhalter and Alton Schlegel both advanced to become head of the New Process Development Department. Each was my boss for over 6 years. Some of the projects I worked on under their direction are listed below.
Talking about patents I should digress and mention we had an on site, full time patent attorney, John Fabke. John was an attorney who went back to engineering school after ten years of practicing law. He was in some engineering classes with me and after he got his degree, came to Parker also. Parker policy was to keep all processing information secret rather than trying to patent it. John was the keeper of all this confidential information. Snub Freeman remembers John “as a big eater and when on a diet, would come into the Model Shop every other week and punch more holes in his belt.” John got melanoma and died in 1982.
Sputter coating is a vacuum process to apply very precise, durable coatings. It is mainly used in the electronic industry to make computer chips. About 1969 Parker bought two units and Gerald Herold and I did extensive development work. This process was eventually put in production to replace gold metal electroplating after I left Parker. Much thinner and more wear resistant coatings can be applied with this process. I developed a thin iridescent, wear resistant, glass coating, which never made it to production. We even worked on applying ruthenium coatings to plastic nibs with some success.
The Division encouraged additional schooling and allowed individuals to take classes during work time. I took one class at a time and eventually got my MSME in 1971. My master’s thesis was on injection molding of thin plastic components. Since the company was interested in this research, I was also allowed to do the experiments on their molding machine. This is another instance of the Technical Division being a great place to work.
Powder plastic coatings were invented about 1972. We bought one of the first “spray guns” and did extensive development of clear and colored coatings. After curing these epoxy coatings in an oven they became very durable. Much of the outdoor furniture has this type coating now days.
In 1975 I worked on machinery to apply interesting four color patterns to pens using a screen printing process. We developed a process to make very durable screens, which were used in production to print the “Big Red, White, and Blue” Bicentennial flags on “Big Red” ball pens.
While in Product Engineering I designed an adjustable flow nib, which changed the written line width by rotating a collar around the nib. It didn’t make it into production as the “180” was developed after this and was much simpler to produce. I even worked on a futuristic “Ultra Pen” and on a gold nib designed by Stuart Devlin. Another process was applying patterns with a preprinted transfer to get a Denim appearance (never went into Production).
The Division had many intelligent laboratory technicians with four year college degrees. Some were very dedicated and spent over twenty years there. These technicians did most of the experimental, time-consuming, repetitive work and all the “gopher” work. They didn’t always get credit for all their extraordinary effort. Some were very creative.
I hired Geraldine Lucash because of her “Mechanical Aptitude”. While interviewing, she told of having her bicycle torn apart and laying all over her living room.
rank Hill started in 1960 and spent most of his 22 years in the metallurgical laboratory. He received two patents while at Parker. Frank replaced John Anderson, who along with Frank Hayes from Gilman, started a powder metal company to make porous metal components using the technology that was learned in making the first porous stainless steel ball pen balls. This company was Sintered Specialties, which was owned by Parker. After being sold, it became SSI Technologies and now has over 1000 employees.
Bob Douglas got one significant patent, on ball pen grease followers (# 3458266), which is sighted in later ball pen patents. Bob left Research after seven years to go to Gilman (a machine tool company Parker had owned) and worked his way to the top spot as General Manager. Bob went on to be president of Engineering Systems Division of Litton Industries and Advanced Assembly Automation Inc. He’s a good example of the very capable people that were in the Technical Division.
Dr. Thomas Hall, a PhD physicist, started in 1978 and contributed to a comprehensive analysis of nib smoothness/scratchiness and leak detection of roller ball pens. After leaving, he became Quality Assurance Manager at Amerock.
John Dyson was a very creative chemist who was involved in many early products. John received nine patents, the most notable being the Teflon coating on the “61” pen to prevent ink from sticking, or “shedding” from the surface when dipped in ink (#3030925). He recommended Exxon stock to me before he retired—excellent advice.
Snub Freeman tells of the retirement gift made for Fred Wittnebert; an authentic miniature canon reproduction, with a five-inch brass barrel, walnut wood and blackened steel fittings. Snub “carried this into Fred’s office in a large box and gave it to Fred. “What’s this?” Snub said “All the Model Makers started working on this over a year ago. They worked on it in between projects and slow times.” Fred took it out of the box and examined it, got up from behind his desk and walked over to the Court Street window and just stood there for a while. Tears came to his eyes.”
In 1979 Jean Deleplanque, (who had been Manufacturing Manager at Parker France, European Area Technical Advisor and Director of Parker Germany) followed Robert Fanella as Vice President of Technical Operations. Jean instituted weekly noon luncheons, where the engineers and scientists took turns presenting talks on various technical topics. Some were: Ink Jet Printing, Shape-Memory Alloys, Liquid Chromatography, Creativity, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Micro Encapsulation, and Lasers. When they remodeled the downtown corporate headquarters building, Jean moved the people to the building behind the manufacturing facility at Arrow Park, which used to be the cafeteria. In August of 1980 after only about a year he was forced to resign (had 16 years with Parker). Also over one-half of the remaining Technical Division employees had their positions eliminated; twenty-three people down to eleven. Those remaining were placed in the new “Corporate Technical Center” or other positions at Arrow Park. It was pretty much the end of an era of the intellectual, creative dynasty that was built by Fred Wittnebert.
In November of 1980 at the last “Research” party, Charlotte Wittnebert said “It’s hard to believe such a large department is down to nothing in four years.”
© 2007 David R. Cress
want to thank all the people who gave me information and helped with this “story”.
APPENDICIES
Listed below are most of the people who spent around 20 or more years in the Technical Division during the 60’s and 70’s (number of years):
FORREST BECK Ball Pen Ink Lab.
JOSEPH BRANKS Mechanical Engineer (27)
ROBERT BURKHALTER* Head of New Process Development (28)
DAVID CRESS Mechanical Engineer (20)
JOHN DYSON* Basic Studies Lab.
ETHYL FAYTLE Secretary
CAROLE FITZPATRICK Technician
JERRY FLYNN* Moved to Special Products, Trent Engineering, Arrow Park (38)
RONALD FREEMAN Head of Model Shop (33)
WAYNE FULLER* Head of Photo Lab./Instrumentation (32)
HOMER TED GREEN* Product Engineer
DORTHY HANSON Lead Technician (39)
CHRIS HEITMAN Model Shop
GEROLD HEROLD Chemical Engineer (22)
WILLIAM HETRICK Draftsman
FRANK HILL Metallurgy Lab. (22)
ADELA JAEGER * Fred’s secretary “George”
BOB JOHNEJACK Head Draftsman
KENNETH KELSH Model Shop
CARL KLAWITTER Head of Model Shop
ROBERT KURANZ Chemistry lab. (33)
RAY LAWTON* Head of Research
WALTER LUEDTKE Draftsman
FRANK MEINHARDT* Head of Product Engineering (30)
JOHN PIEKARSKI* Moved to Special Products
LARRY PIERCE Specifications
KATHERINE PIERSON* Lead Technician (28)
ELIZABETH RICHTER* Secretary
BOB RYAN Model Shop
ALTON SCHLEGEL Head of New Process Development (23)
CLEMENS SONNTAG* Product Engineer (32)
RAYMOND SPAULDING* Manager (30+)
ANNIE TERRILL Technician
CAROL THOMAS Technician
ZITA UMHOEFER Technician
MARTIN WACHA Draftsman
FRED WITTNEBERT* Director and V.P. of Technical Division (21)
ERNEST WOODCOCK* went to Arrow Park
*People that were there in 1959
Listed below are some of the people who
Division during the 60’s and 70’s:
CHUCK ALLEN
DEBBIE ALBRIGHT
JOHN ANDERSON
STEVEN ANDERSON
JANE BATTERMAN
WALTER BEIGER
JODIE BELDON
FRANK BERNARD
DORTHY BEAUCHAMP
JOHN BJORK
LINDA DETLAFF BRANDT
MARY BREESE
MARY BUNDERSON WACHA
MIKE BURG
DON CADMAN
DORI COPLIEN
GLADYS COSTELLO
ERLINE COX
PAUL DANGLER
ROBERT DOUGLAS
GAYLE DOUGLAS
DOUG DELLING
DON DYKE
MARILYN ELLIS
JOHN FABKE
BOB FANELLA
RALPH FARNHAM
CHUCK FATINO
JULES FELDMAN
CAROLE FIBROW
MARY FITZGERALD
PAULA FLOOD
DAVID FLURRY
PEGGY FOLK
ANN MOEN FOX
JOAN FOX
SUE FREDERICKSON CAMPION
CAROL FREEMAN
HARLAN FRISKE
DONALD FURMAN
JON FURSETH
ROBERT GOEPFERT
MEL GOODELL
JERRY GOODMAN
WILSON GREEN
CHARLES GRUBER
NANCY GURNEE
SUZANNE HABEGER
Dr. TOM HALL
STEVE HEIKKINEN
RUTH ANN HESS
TOM HILLEBRAND
CHET HOLLOWAY
OLE HOLMAN
LLOYD HORNBOSTEL
EVELYN HOUGHTON
WILLIAM HYZER
PAUL JOHNSON
Dr. BARRY JONES
JAN JONES
HARLEY JUNG
JERRY KELLY
CONNIE KEMP
ROBERTA KERR
TOM LAWRENCE
GERALDINE LUCASH
VERNON MEYER
TIM PERRY
TIMOTY PISHKO
ANNE POPP
RICH ROBERTS
PAM ROSHON
LEROY “WHITIE” SANDS
LAURA SCHALLER
HAROLD SCHUT
ROBERT SHUMAN
DORTHY SPOHN
DAN STAMBAUGH
LORETTA STAMBAUGH
CAROLE STANTON
MIKE STEED
CINDY SIMSON SWANSON
Dr. LARRY TALLEY
E. DALE THOMPSON
JUDIE TRUDEAU
GEORGE TUCKER
CLARENCE WILLIAMS
BARBARA ZILLMER