Society of Manufacturing Engineers

North Texas Chapter 51

Society of Manufacturing Engineers

Background: The organization now known as the Society of Manufacturing Engineers was known originally as the American Society of Tool Engineers (ASTE) and was founded in 1932. In 1939, ASTE had 3500 members and 25 Chapters. In that year, the Society issued a Charter to the first non-USA Chapter in Toronto, Canada, in addition to Chapters in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The National Education Committee was established as a standing committee at that time and one of their first proposals was to recommend college degree programs in Tool Engineering. In 1940, the Society was divided into 19 Regions, with two Chapters in each region. As part of the war effort in 1942, many Society members taught in government war training programs and the Society's 1942 Tool Engineering Talent Survey identified manufacturing specialists for war plant assignments.

1942 - The Beginning: By 1942, ASTE was almost 12,000 members strong and that is the year that North Texas Chapter 51 was formed. Here is an excerpt from the March, 1942, ASTE Newsletter:

"The 51st Chapter was organized on February 16 at a dinner meeting in the Jefferson Hotel, Dallas, and will be called the North Texas Chapter. Mr. Frank Curtis, President of the Society, presented the Charter to a group of seventy charter members, after giving an outline of the organization's history and purpose. Floyd Doty of the Houston Chapter was present and pointed out the rapid advancements made in the field of tool engineering in the past ten years. Mr. Emil Shetlin, who handled most of the ground work in organizing the Chapter, was elected Chairman. Other officers elected were Richard E. Hager, first Vice-Chairman, William N. Oswald, second Vice-Chairman, Jack J. Vanderwell, Treasurer and Claude N. Wilson, Secretary."

1946 National Convention: The 1946 ASTE National Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, was a big event for Chapter 51. At that time, the convention included a new body of Chapter representatives, called The House of Delegates, assembled for the first time to elect ASTE Directors. The delegates included Miss Margaret Amis, the first female member of Chapter 51 and the first female ASTE member in Texas! Other Chapter 51 delegates included E. L. Minch, T. A. Hersh, J. A. Lapham, P. D. Browne, H. E. Collins and F. E. Doty.

George T. Christopher, President of the Packard Motor Car Co., was an old time tool engineer. He made the keynote speech at the 1946 convention, entitled "The Middle Man of Technology", referring to the role of the tool engineer.

Please note that the P. D. Browne listed above is the founder of the P. D. Browne Co., which is a valued advertiser in our Chapter Bulletin today, over 50 years later. P. D. was Chapter 51 Chairman in 1945-46 and E. L. Minch did the honors in 1949-50.

1947-1948: The Chapter 51 50th Anniversary Scrapbook includes an old 1947-48 Chapter 51 ASTE letterhead. This carries the names of all of the officers as well as Committee Chairman. That list includes the name of E. C. "Ed" Steiner, on the Program Committee. Ed was the founder of OEM Industries, Inc. of Dallas, and his son, Ed Steiner, Jr., runs the business today. OEM is still today one of our most valued Bulletin Sponsors and advertisers.

The 1948 Chapter 51 membership roster is preserved in our Scrapbook: this shows 27 Dallas members, 21 misc. and 47 Fort Worth members. We also have a photograph of the Chapter 51 Installation of Officers dinner meeting held at the Engineers Club in Dallas. That photo shows at least 100 members and guests in attendance.

1958-1960, National Recognition: As part of the House of Delegates at the 1958 National Convention, the Chapter 51 reps were promoting Texas members in the vote for National Directors and officers. They created a very humorous map of the United States of Texas, with the state of Texas occupying a huge part of the USA, with the title of "North Texas and Surrounding Territory (border towns)". This showed very small areas for the other states, such as New Mexico (for testing Texas atoms), Oklahoma Territory (to be annexed by Texas soon), Colo. Pikes Peak (for viewing Texas), Dakota Bad Lands (made famous by Texans), Arizona Tombstone (made famous by Texas gunfighters), Wall Street in New York (made famous by Texans) and Nevada Las Vagas (formed by Texas tycoons), to name just a few.

Then Chapter 51 started to move up in the National ASTE organization. A.E. "Speed" Unruh was named Chairman of the National ASTE Membership Committee. A photograph in the February 1960 issue of "The Tool Engineer" newsletter showed Speed Unruh; Irving Buck, ASTE National Director; Paul Simpson, vice-chairman of the National Program Committee and Lee Edmondson of the National Technical Publications Committee. Paul later served as Chairman of the Membership Committee as well as National Director. Each one of these men was Chairman of Chapter 51 at one time or another.

Other Chapter 51 members who served at the National level included John Lapham, National Director, Joe Edwards, Constitution & By-laws and Ben Harris, Editorial. Here again, each of these also served as Chairman of Chapter 51.

1959 - Hard Times at Chance Vought: In February, 1959, the Chance Vought plant in Grand Prairie got hit hard with the Defense Dept. cancellation of F84-3 Crusader in favor of the McDonnell Douglas F4H. The Tooling Dept. was looking for the go-ahead to build rate tools when the cancellation came through, and layoffs of some 60% were suffered in some tooling areas as well as 20% in production. At the same time the Regulus II Supersonic Missile Program was cancelled. Total plant employment fell from 16,000 to less than 12,000. We quote from the Chapter 51 Bulletin, in an article written by Ernie Adams, Chapter 51 Secretary:

"Despite what happened the future is bright. A fantastic number of sales groups have been formed to beat the bushes for new business. The recently acquired B-70 empennage contract will make 1960 a big year for tooling. Numerous other programs are beginning to take hold, giving evidence this fired-up organization is only temporarily down. An interesting sidelight to these layoffs is that any of the tooling people laid off who were active in A.S.T.E. were out of work less than a week. Think it over fellows. This Society pays good dividends."

1960-1970, ASTME: On January 7, 1960, the name of the national organization was changed to American Society of Tool and Manufacturing Engineers.

The Chapter 51 Technical Meeting on February 9, 1965 was fairly typical of meetings in those days. The meeting was held at Great Southwest International Airport (Amon Carter Field). The airport dining room was huge. It could accommodate over 200 easily. The subject was "F-111 Tool & Manufacturing Engineering". Speakers were Lee Barnett, Chief of Tooling & Support Equipment Projects at General Dynamics/Fort Worth and Dick May, Chief of Manufacturing Research & Development at GD/FW. Manufacturing problems in building the swing-wing F-111 were considerable, when considering that D6aC steel was used in many places throughout the structure, especially in the wing carry-through fitting. Machining was difficult and heat treating was critical, final temper being on the order of 260,000 to 280,000 psi.

Mr. Fort Worth - Amon Carter: Fort Worth and Convair (later General Dynamics) played a large role in the growth of North Texas Chapter 51. At its peak during the F-111 program, for example, employment at GD reached the 30,000 level and support for ASTME Chapter 51 was strong throughout the manufacturing organization.

The story of Great Southwest International Airport is interesting. In those days Amon Carter, owner and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was known as Mr. Fort Worth and he had a fierce pride in Cowtown. Maybe he was the one who started the story about comparing Fort Worth and Dallas, stating that Fort Worth was where the West begins and Dallas was where the East petered out! At any rate, when Dallas built Love Field, he decided that two could play that game. He felt that Fort Worth deserved its own International airport and took steps to build the Great Southwest airport. That area is now the Great Southwest industrial district and, as we all know, the two cities finally got together and built the massive D/FW airport on available land between the two cities.

Mr. Carter was part of the ownership group when American Airlines had its beginnings and would never fly any other airline when he had to leave town on business. In fact, he had one favorite seat that he always reserved when flying on American. Let's call it seat number 12A. Returning from a business trip, the plane landed at Love Field but Mr. Carter stayed in his seat and refused to get off the airplane, saying he wanted to fly to Great Southwest. AA personnel offered to take him to Great Southwest in a limousine but he would have none of it. Not all of the AA people knew who he was and were concerned that they could not figure out how to get rid of this guy.

Finally, the pilot called headquarters for some advice on how to resolve the situation. He was asked what seat the man was in. He answered 12A. At that point, he was told: "Crank it up, you're flying to Great Southwest!"

Another story about Amon Carter goes like this. He had a meeting in Dallas one day and was observed eating a sack lunch in the lobby of the biggest hotel in Dallas. When asked why the sack lunch, he stated, "There's not a fit place to eat in this town!"

The First Dallas Tool Show & The New Name, SME: 1970 was the year the Society changed from ASTME to SME. The first Southwest Engineering Conference & Tool Exposition was held in Dallas later that year on November 17, 18 and 19. North Texas Chapter 51 played a large role in the success of this tool show, sponsored by SME Dearborn. The newly formed DalRich (Dallas - Richardson) Chapter 195, an offshoot of Chapter 51, also participated. Look at the list of important Tool Show posts assigned to Chapters 51 and 195:

• Sherman Oatman, Collins Radio, Ch. 51: Chairman of the Advisory Committee
• Leo St. John, Texas Instruments, Ch. 195: Technical Session Advisor
• A.E. "Speed" Unruh, General Dynamics, Ch. 51: Manpower Supervisor
• John Hansen, Vought Aeronautics Division, LTV, Ch. 51: Plant Tour Activities

This show was extremely successful, attracting 6,000 manfacturing engineers and managers, and has since been repeated by SME on a biennial basis.

1971-1979, Chapter 51 in the News: Here is an excerpt from the National SME Newsletter dated Fall, 1971:

"From nose to tail describes the July meeting of North Texas Chapter 51. The meeting was held on an American Airlines 747. After the business meeting, Mr. John F. Hansen, Chairman (pictured), led the 150 members, wives and guests through the jumbo jet. Additional thanks go to Chapter 51 for their aid in presenting the Southwestern Engineering Conference & Tool Exposition in Dallas."

The big news early in this period (December 12, 1973) was the selection of Speed Unruh of Chapter 51 to receive the 1974 SME Award of Merit. This was presented to Speed "in recognition of his unusual effort and dedication in service to his Chapter, in aiding the work of SME National Committees and in contributing to the Society's greater recognition and prestige with industry".

F. Paul Simpson, Chapter 51 Chairman in 1956-57, was recognized in the Winter 1973 SME Newsletter. Paul had moved from the post of Chief of Production Engineering for General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut (Electric Boat) to Deputy Program Manager for Canadair, Ltd. of Montreal, Canada, where he joined Montreal Chapter 50. We quote: "At the National level, he has served as vice-chairman of the Program Committee, Chairman of the Membership Committee and as National Director from 1963 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1973."

In 1974, Chapter 51 was instrumental in having the Governor of Texas, Dolph Briscoe, and the Mayor of Dallas, Wes Wise, declare the week of the second Southwestern Tool & Manufacturing Exposition and Engineering Conference, February 17-23, as Manufacturing Engineering Week. Copies of the Proclamations can be seen in the Chapter 51 50th Anniversary scrapbook.

Membership in SME in 1974 totaled 40,000 in 40 countries.

In the period 1978-'79, the typical Chapter 51 Bulletin listed all the officers of the Chapter (6) plus the Committee Chairman reporting to the various officers (17, with some doing double duty). In addition the officers of sister Chapters in the area were shown, including the Wichita Falls sub-Chapter, East Texas Chapter 126, DalRich Chapter 195, Centroplex sub-Chapter (Central Texas, Waco and Temple) and Abilene sub-Chapter 535.

1980-Present: In the December, 1980 Bulletin, the Chapter 51 Quarter Century Club listed the names of all members with 25 years of continuous service. This list included 36 names, one of whom was Charles Templeton, who went on to become International President of SME.

The 1984 Installation of Officers Dinner Meeting was held at the Engineers Club in Dallas. For many years many of the special meetings of the Chapter were held at the Engineers Club. This practice was discontinued with the advent of DalRich Chapter 195, which absorbed many members living in the Dallas - Richardson area and other areas on the east side of the Metroplex.

SME membership in 1991 totaled 80,000 members in 72 countries.

More to follow at a later date.

About the author: Dick Walsh joined Chapter 51 in 1963. At that time he was employed by Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., co-prime contractor on the F-111 program, working with General Dynamics Manufacturing Engineering, Manufacturing, Mfg. Research, and Engineering Dept. personnel. Promoted and transferred back to Bethpage, L.I. by Grumman in 1967, Dick and Dotty decided that living in Yankeeeland no longer appealed to them. Through contacts made in Chapter 51, he accepted a position with Ling-Temco-Vought in Grand Prairie, where he worked for Joe Millsap as Tool Project Engineer on the A-7 and S3A programs and in the Production Development organization, where he served as Production Mock-up Team Leader. Dick later worked for, and retired from, General Dynamics/Fort Worth, now Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.