Charles F. Conrad

Charles F. Conrad
Born	Charles Frederick Conrad July 8, 1917 Ludington, Michigan
Died	February 9, 1995(1995-02-09) (aged 77) Jacksonville, Florida
Resting place	Pilgrim Home Cemetery
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Parent(s)	James Conrad, Ella Conrad

Charles Frederick Conrad (July 8, 1917 – February 9, 1995) was the founder of the LMC Lake Michigan Car Ferry service. He is also known as an industrialist who made environmental test chambers for the aircraft and aerospace industries. His test chambers were also used by the commercial industry, rocket industry, National Aeronautic and Space Administration, and the United States Armed Forces. The headquarters for his companies were in Holland, Michigan, with sales and service branches throughout the world. His formal schooling is as a high school graduate and a correspondence course in refrigeration.

Early life[]

Conrad's parents were James and Ella. He was born in Ludington, Michigan, on July 8, 1917.^[1] His father worked for 35 years on carferries.^[2] Conrad graduated from the local Ludington High School in 1935.^[3] From 1935 to 1936 he had part-time jobs as a dishwasher at Stearns Hotel and as a woodworker for Carrom Manufacturing Company and Thompson Cabinet Company, both in Ludington. During this time he took correspondence school courses to learn refrigeration.^[4]

Conrad's first career job was in 1937. During this time Conrad worked full-time as a refrigeration service repairman in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He then moved to Holland, Michigan, in March 1941, and in that year established a refrigeration service business, borrowing over three hundred dollars to get it started.^[1] In 1942 he moved to Lansing, Michigan, and worked almost three years in the refrigeration field on environmental simulation chambers for environmental testing of aircraft. In 1945 Conrad moved back to Holland and re-established his business as the Charles F. Conrad Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Service & Sales Company.^[4] He installed air conditioning units in commercial businesses like restaurants at that time.^[5]

Mid life[]

Pioneer V satellite with electronic circuits tested in Thermotron chambers

Thermotron test chamber

In 1951 Conrad got involved in building an extreme cold chamber for H.E. Morse Company that could reach a temperature of -125 degrees Fahrenheit. He built his first unit on the front porch of his home in Holland, Michigan. He had redesigned a home freezer to accomplish this and sold it to General Motors Heat Treat Lab in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They ordered two more of these environmental chambers for him to construct. He then started a company called Conrad, Inc. that was involved with designing and building extreme temperature environmental chambers for testing precision electrical and mechanical components. Conrad's company was eventually merged into Crampton Manufacturing Company at the end of 1954 and was a wholly owned subsidiary. It was engaged in the design and manufacture of test equipment for missile test projects and space research equipment laboratories. Conrad's chambers simulated earthbound weather conditions, as well as high altitude flight temperature extremes.^[6]

Some of these projects the test chambers were used for were the X-15 research rocket aircraft and the Redstone experimental missiles. Other projects the chambers were used for were the Thor launch rocket, the Falcon guided missile, the LaCrosse tactical weapon, the Pershing ballistic missile, and the Polaris nuclear missile. Conrad's chambers were also used in space research by supplying test equipment for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. The company was one of the leaders in the development of the research test chambers. Most of the employees of the company were natives of the Holland area or long-term residents. Conrad, Inc. had sales locations at twelve branches throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.^[6]

In 1962, Conrad quit Conrad, Inc and started a new company called Thermotron and he was the only employee at that time.^[7] His new Holland company received their first order from Republic Aviation to build some environmental test chambers to test precision aircraft components of the F-105 supersonic fighter bomber jet under extreme temperatures.^[8] Thermotron had 40 employees by 1966 with branches in Canada and France.^[9] Conrad's company had 117 employees in 1973 and 175 employees in 1976 with three plants in Holland, one in California, and five sales or service centers throughout the United States.^[10] It eventually grew to over 500 employees by 1980, becoming the largest in the industry in the world.^[4] The company expanded from one building location of 60,000 square feet to seven factory buildings all around Holland, Michigan.^[7] Some of the factories had nearly 200,000 square feet of factory floor space.^[4]

The Thermotron environmental test chambers were used in the automobile industry for product quality assurance, the aerospace industry to test satellite electronics for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, the electrical and electronic industries, and the United States military.^[7][9] They were also used by I.B.M., I T & T, and the Project Gemini, Project Mercury, and Project Apollo national space programs.^[1][4] Conrad's company title was President, Chief Engineer, and Sales/Marketing manager. The majority of test chambers manufactured were for controlling temperature, temperature-humidity, and combinations of these environments with vibration equipment option attachments.^[7]

The chambers did cooling or heating electronically without gases or any moving parts. Marine refrigeration and "over the road" truck air conditioning were side-lines that Thermotron developed.^[8] Other side-line products Thermotron made were kilns for the ceramic industry and mercury detection equipment used by the United States National Bureau of Standards and the Environmental Protection Agency.^[11] The Aqua-Lab was a product Conrad added to Thermotron's Anti-Pollution Technology Division in 1970. It was a scientific work station used in pollution studies, lake bottom sampling and natural habitat water research. It was a specifically designed controlled watercraft of foam-filled molded fiberglass pontoons with a rear mounted paddle wheel and an air cooled engine. It saved many man-hours of labor that were required by technical personnel to obtain scientific information by testing samples by hand.^[12]

The environmental simulation chambers are insulated welded boxes with mechanical cooling and heating systems to provide low temperature down to - 100 degrees Fahrenheit (-73 °C) and high temperatures up 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 °C). The test chambers are designed to comply with United States military specifications, and are used to test electronic components and complete units used in many defense products such as radio communication equipment, airborne radar, and missile guidance systems. Many environmental testing chambers are also designed for commercial and industrial product testing such as photographic equipment manufactured by Eastman Kodak, computers made by IBM, and office equipment built by Xerox.^[13] Conrad sold the company in 1980 and then operated Ludington area family-type resorts at Hamlin Lake for five years. After spending a million dollars (equivalent to over $2,000,000 in 2021) in renovations for the resorts he sold them out in 1987.^[1]

Lake Michigan Carferry Service[]

SS Badger with LMC logo

Conrad purchased three ships called SS Badger, SS Spartan and SS City of Midland 41 from the defunct Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation company in 1991.^[1][14] The transportation company had insurmountable debts and went out of business in November of 1990.^[15] He renamed his new enterprise LMC Lake Michigan Car Ferry Service when the U.S. Bankruptcy Court awarded the Badger and two other ships to the new carferry service on February 18, 1992.^[16][A][17] Conrad converted Badger to a tourist passenger cruise ship and automobile carrier from a railroad carferry at a cost of $1.5 million.^[18] He put the ship back in service in 1992, hoping to get 80,000 passengers the first season. He exceeded his goal with 115,000 passengers in their first year of operation.^[B] As of 2014 Badger is the only ship carrying both passengers and automobiles across any of the Great Lakes,^[20] and it is the last coal fired passenger steamship in the United States.^[21][22] Conrad referred to the ship as "The Big Badger".^[23]

The S.S. Badger is claimed the largest carferry on the Michigan Great Lakes of as 2020. It is four hundred feet long and travels at 18 miles per hour (29 km/h) to make the 4.5-hour trip across Lake Michigan. It does almost 500 crossings per year during the summer with about six hundred passengers and just under two hundred vehicles (motorcycles, automobiles, RVs, trucks) on each trip. The ship contains 40 staterooms and an outside deck. The ship was designated an official registered Wisconsin Historic Site in 1997. SS Badger was given a Ship of Year award by the American Steamship Historical Society in 2002.^[22][24] Since 2009 it has been listed in the United States Register of Historic Places and since 2016 it has been designated a National Historic Landmark.^[25]

Later life and death[]

Conrad sold Lake Michigan Carferry company to a group of its executives in 1994,^[26] headed by his son-in-law Robert "Bob" Manglitz.^[27] Conrad spent the winters of the last years of his life in Florida. He died at St. Luke's Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, in the morning of February 9, 1995.^[1]

Family[]

His wife's name is Elsie Alida Conrad and his two daughters are Barbara and Janet.^[1] Janet is the wife of Robert Manglitz, the President and CEO of Lake Michigan Carferry from 1995 on.^[28]

Societies and church[]

Conrad in 1968 was nominated and elected to the to the grade of a "Fellow" by the Institute of Environmental Sciences Board of Directors. This is the highest membership grade available with only about one per cent of membership attaining it. Conrad served as president of the Midwest Scanlon Associates Board of Directors in 1970. It was formed to further employee participation with management in the successful operation of manufacturing businesses. He has also served on numerous boards in the city of Holland, including for four years the Tulip Time of Directors.^[7]

Conrad was a member of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, a Paul Harris Fellow of the Holland Rotary Club, director of Ludington Economic Development Corporation, board member of Holland's Tulip Time, board member of the Holland Community Foundation and a president of Midwest Scanton Associates. He belonged to the Zion/Lutheran Church in Holland, Michigan. He was also a representative for restoring "Big Red" lighthouse at Holland, Michigan. Conrad was involved with seven schools that participated in the Tech-Prep Consortium that was associated with West Shore Community College in the Ludington area. He was named the top small business subcontractor in six Midwestern states in 1977 by the Small Business Administration.^[1]

Works[]

Conrad wrote The Matt Urban Story: The Hero We Never Forgot, in 1989 with lieutenant colonel Matt Urban (recipient of the Medal of Honor).^[29]

Inventions[]

Conrad patented a multiple stage refrigeration system in 1954.^[30]

References[]

Notes[]

Citations[]

Sources[]

• Blume, Kenneth J. (2011). History Dictionary of U.S. Maritime Industry (Print). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7963-8.
• Chavez, Art (2003). S.S. Badger: Lake Michigan Car Ferry (Print). Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-2304-0.
• Richman, Sheldon L. (2000). Ideas on Liberty. Foundation for Economic Education.
• Scharfenberg, Doris (1994). Country Towns of Michigan (Print). Castine, Maine: Country Roads Press. ISBN 978-1-56626-048-0.
• Urban, Matt; Conrad, Charles F. (1989). The Matt Urban Story (Print). Holland, Michigan: Matt Urban Story, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-9624621-0-8.
• Zimmermann, Karl (1993). Lake Michigan's Railway Car Ferries (Print). Andover, NJ: Andover Junction Publications. ISBN 978-0-944119-11-2.