Verne E. Minich and Otto A. Pfaff — the foundry-equipment founders

the enterprise founded 1908 · Mishawaka from 1 January 1926 · Minich president to 1941

The founding act: The company that became Wheelabrator began with one salesman. Verne E. Minich founded the enterprise in 1908 — as the Sand Mixing Machine Company, in the company's own magazine — leasing and then selling a newly developed mechanical sand-cutting device to foundries. The International Directory of Company Histories dates the successor company's establishment to 1911; both datings are printed, and the 1908 date is the founder's own record. In 1919 Minich merged his company with the Rich Foundry Equipment Company of Chicago, and in 1920 the company took the name American Foundry Equipment Company. On 1 January 1926 its manufacturing was consolidated on an eighty-three-acre site in Mishawaka, with a workforce of less than a hundred, office, engineering, and production together.

The succession, documented at both ends: In 1933 the company introduced the first practical airless blast-cleaning machine and called it the Wheelabrator — the machine that named the company, introduced on its founder's watch. Minich remained president until 1941, when Otto A. Pfaff — the office boy of 1916, general manager in 1933 — succeeded him: a founder-to-office-boy succession of the same form as Mix's at Dodge, and, like his, documented by the company's own magazine. By 1964 Mishawaka was still the company's principal manufacturing facility and its world headquarters; the plant occupied more than 750,000 square feet by the company's fiftieth year on the site in 1976 (the Auburn University case study counts 600,000 square feet and 1,500 employees for the 1970s; both size figures stand at their carriers). The equipment business was wound down in the 1980s and consolidated at LaGrange, Georgia, in 1991; the works' Mishawaka course is the Businesses section's. Pfaff's leaving date, and the company's chiefs after him, are not carried in the record reached and stand in the closing entry.

Sources:

1. Businesses & Banks — "Wheelabrator — the foundry-equipment works" (Minich's 1908 founding as the Sand Mixing Machine Company, on the company's magazine; the International Directory's 1911 dating, printed as a conflict; the 1919 Rich Foundry merger and the 1920 name; the consolidation at Mishawaka on 1 January 1926 with a workforce under one hundred; the 1933 Wheelabrator machine; Minich president to 1941 and Pfaff's succession, from office boy of 1916 and general manager of 1933; the plant sizes at both carriers; the 1980s wind-down and the 1991 LaGrange consolidation).