I told Ardis that I had reached a decision of what I would pursue when we arrived home, I would get enough education to graduate as a refrigeration engineer and eventually open my own sales and service business. Great expectations!!!
On advice from the VA I signed up for the benefits of the GI bill of rights which would give me four years of training on anything that I wanted to go into. I started looking for schools and factories where I could work and pursue my studies at the same time, knowing that it would be necessary for me to make a living along with the studies I found two factories where they would participate under the GI bill, one was the SHERER GILLETTE CO. of Marshall,
I might mention here, that I chose to take the G.E.D. test before applying for the G.I. bill--- on the job training program the government was sponsoring. (GED stands for general equivalency diploma) obviously, it paid off. I also studied English and math and passed an industrial office management course.
The other the TYLER REFRIGERATION CO. of Niles, Mi After interviewing with
the personnel that would handle. my progress and send monthly reports to the government that was set up to evaluate the success within the factory and schooling from KELLOG VOCATION SCHOOL OF TRAINING
At each place of learning (several were set up around the country) different categories would be studied which made it tough to keep abreast of that which I was learning on the job. Over the next couple years I went to Ford in Dearborn for advanced application and silver soldering of copper joints mostly used in the refrigeration industry ,looking back I believe that I received better mechanical information at Ferris Institute in big rapids than anywhere else with maybe the exception of a school set up by an engineer in Traverse City, Mi.
At this time I had progressed enough in the factory that they paid for all my expenses in attending these learning institutions, in fact after four years graduating A plus I was made senior line instructor in the plant on the refrigeration assembly, just a skosh under the foreman. Two years later I was called in to the president's office and advised to come in the following Monday wearing a dress suit and tie, I was promoted to service Mgr.
Had my own office and secretary, was put on salary with full executive privileges including stock options and a free membership at Marshall country club, the stock options which we took advantage of every time one would come up proved to be the most valuable as most of them quadrupled when I retired, in as much as this was the beginning of factory service, it was necessary for me to hire enough service men to handle it. I knew that Ferris
Institute was graduating a class of refrigeration service men every year so I called a professor Hall that I had met when I was there and got the low down on a couple of good men that was graduating. Names------Jack Karol and Bernie White. I hired them both, however Bernie was Korean War age so off to the army went Bernie so I had to replace him with a local man until Bernie returned ( It was a government order that army personnel could have there old job back on discharge ),In fact I was service Mgr. when we made all those trips I have previously reported, However, there were many more that I will skip as the most interesting ones are down somewhere in this report if you can find them, I better let it be known that I held the service managers job for eight years. Then in 1960 I made still another trip to the presidents office and was informed that the company was progressing to the point where it was necessary to consider establishment of a quality control position, in-as-much as this had been a credible part of my four year training he wanted me to immediately take steps to hire a young fellow to eventually take over my job as service manager. We figured the best way to do this was to sponsor an A+ student at the
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