Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 6, 1976.
Father Encouraged Sons’ Experiments
Early Experiences As Inventors Hone Urschel Brothers’ Talents
By JOE URSCHEL
IN ADDITION TO MYSELF, this story relates to my two brothers, Kenneth and Gerald, and to my father, William Urschel. Each in his own way contributed to the building of Urschel Laboratories.
Our father’s factory was only a few feet from the back porch of our house and for us children, much of our life began in the factory. One of my earliest memories relates to the time when I was such a small child that it was necessary for me to stand on a box to reach the table of a large band saw which contained no safety guards. I complained to my father that the foreman had put me out of our shop because he discovered me operating this band saw. My father replied that I would have to operate the band saw when the foreman was not around. My father expressed no fear that any of us children would get injured with the machinery. We did not get injured.
My father permitted us to do what we wanted to do and encouraged us in every way to investigate all kinds of technical pursuits. Consequently, we did many things that children ordinarily do not do. Sometimes we worked together on projects, but usually we worked as individuals.
THESE ARE SOME of the things we did when we were children: built our own cameras and made our own paper for making photographic prints; assembled a large mineral collection and studied the crystalline structure, chemical composition and uses of each of the minerals; built and operated radio transmitters; stung wire through the neighborhood for telegraphic message sending; made explosives by the bucketful and used these for making fireworks and in firing homemade cannons.
We also made a boat with side paddle wheels which were operated from cranks inside the boat; made our own diving gear and walked around on the bottom of Flint Lake; manufactured and sold a product for transferring photographs on newsprint to cloth; built crude musical instruments; made etched printing press; used a large chemistry laboratory in our basement and performed college-level experiments; developed a prospecting kit and went prospecting for gold in South Dakota; built many kites and model airplanes; learned to fly full-sized airplanes; built our own still and made booze; built a large number of pieces of furniture; and even went so far as to develop a special metal alloy and cast some beautiful counterfeit coins which were deposited in slot machines and thereby traded for real ones.
In the factory, we were first paid an hourly rate for our labors at about the age of eight. By the early teens, we had learned to operate all the machinery in the shop. We had learned to make drawings, to make patterns in the pattern shop, and to make castings in the foundry.
Then our father began to train us to become inventors. We would be sent off into separate rooms with our drawing boards and after attempting to solve some mechanical problems, we would then compare drawings to see who had the best solution. In the beginning, father always had the best answer. As time went on, we gradually improved our skills, and the time finally came when we would sometimes all reach the same solution. Today, almost all of the machinery we built is the result of inventions by my brother Gerald and me.
Brother Kenneth was not interested in machine design. Instead, he went on to develop other skills that have become invaluable to the success of our company. He is in charge of office and plant layout and is in full charge of pricing of all parts and machines.
IT WAS NOT ALL complete freedom in living and working with our father. There were certain rules of the game. We were encouraged to strive for perfection and only shoddy workmanship was not tolerated. The greatest sin we could commit was to make a copy of what someone else had made. When we designed a machine, we were not permitted to discover how other people had built similar equipment. We were not permitted to simply improve on what others had accomplished. Consequently, our radical approach to machine design caused our equipment to become highly successful. Competitive machine designs disappeared from the market.
The years of World War II taught us something about our ability to manufacture. At the beginning of the war, we were instructed from Washington that we must stop building food processing machinery and that we must convert completely to making machines for war. Suddenly, we were faced with a type of competition that we had not previously known. We were furnished drawings of machines and parts and were asked to bid against other machine shops for each job. The lowest bidder got the job.
We sadly discovered that we could not bid successfully on things that were easy to make. It seemed that too many people wanted these easy jobs. We learned that we could bid successfully on things that were extremely difficult to make. Many of the jobs we obtained were jobs in which one or more other shops had completely failed to produce acceptable parts.
A reputation was established for producing the highest quality workmanship and we soon had all the work that our shop could accomplish. We went on to build much shell loading and assembly equipment, testing devices, and experimental aircraft engine parts. Suddenly, we were ordered from Washington to stop building war machines and to begin building equipment for the food dehydration industry. We were placed on a high priority basis for building this kind of equipment throughout the remainder of the war.
OUR FATHER did not enjoy manufacturing and, therefore, manufactured only a few of his minor inventions. His major patents were licensed to three large manufacturing companies. These inventions consisted of green bean processing equipment, continuous vegetable peeling machinery, and various kinds of harvesting machines.
My brother Gerald and I began to invent machines for the cutting of food products into various shapes and sizes. These machines operated at extremely high speeds. Outstanding accuracy was required in making the parts.
Other manufacturing companies were not capable of making parts for these machines. It was necessary that we build them. To make this possible, we built more factories and purchased more machine tools. Finally, buildings covered all of our land on South Napoleon Street and it was necessary to move to a new location.
To build a completely new plant, it was necessary to go looking for money. We had never borrowed any money and discovered that no one would lend us any. It was necessary to wait a few years until our profits accumulated to the point that the building of a new plant was feasible.
The first section of the new plant was built on North Calumet Road in 1957. When the plant was finished, we had used all the accumulated funds. More plant and machine tools were needed. All our profits were used to expand the operation. The plant grew from about 19,000 square feet in 1956 to 90,000 square feet today.
THERE NEVER WAS a wish to grow to become a large company. What happened was that food processors brought their problems to us and we invented more machines to fill these needs. Today, people are bringing their problems to us from all over the world.
Enclosed in the plant is a food laboratory which is busy every day working with food processors to develop new foods for a hungry world. During the last few years, this laboratory has worked with pharmaceutical houses in the clean cutting of many kinds of animal glands for the solvent extraction of various drugs to cure human ills. Most of the world’s processed food is cut with Urschel machinery for canning, freezing and freeze-drying.
Also, Urschel machines process almost all of such foods as potato chips, frozen French fries, catsup and peanut butter, as well as a part of the nation’s snacks, candy, cereals and many kinds of baked goods. Forty-five per cent of this machinery is shipped to foreign countries. Some of the newer customers are found in China, Russia and the Arab countries.
In 1963 the company installed a computer to control its manufacturing operation, for writing its payroll, for its accounts payable and receivable, and for many other uses. After learning the possibilities of the use of computers, the company decided to go into the computer service business.
In January, 1967, Indiana Information Controls, Inc., opened its doors for business. Its first bank customer was First National Bank of Valparaiso. It has been necessary to expand the size of the building twice since it was built. It now covers an area of 15,000 square feet. It processes the work of 55 banks in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, as well as processing the payrolls and other records for 170 organizations.
Two hundred fifty acres of land on North Calumet was purchased by our father many years ago. It was our desire to develop this land with high quality construction in a setting of green lawns and trees. In 1969 Urschel Development Corporation was established for this purpose. Development is proceeding as planned.
Retouched photo of William Urschel’s factory which he built in 1910 at 158 S. Napoleon. He told us that he drove every nail in the two-story frame structure, said William’s son, Joe Urschel, who loaned this picture to The Vidette-Messenger. William is at left and his brother Clay is at right. Factory was built for manufacturing gooseberry snippers which removed both stem and blossom ends from berries.
