Robert Gilmour LeTourneau (November 30, 1888 - June 1, 1969), born in Richford, Vermont, and is a prolific inventor of earth moving machines. The factories supplied LeTourneau engines representing nearly 70 percent of the earth moving and engineering equipment used by Allied forces during World War II, and over half of Canada's 1,500 miles Alcan Highway was built with LeTourneau equipment. During his lifetime he earned nearly 300 patents relating to ground transfer equipment, manufacturing processes and machine tools.
The name LeTourneau becomes synonymous with earthmoving around the world. LeTourneau is largely responsible for the discovery and development of various types of soil transfer machines that are now widely used. He designed and built machines using years of technology, sometimes decades, before his time and became recognized worldwide as a leader in the development and manufacture of heavy equipment. The use of rubber tires in earthmoving; many improvements related to scrapers; development of low pressure rubber tires, high pressure; two-wheel tractor unit ("Tournapull"); electric wheel drive, and mobile offshore drilling platform, all associated with the ingenuity of LeTourneau.
With the help of his wife, the late Evelyn Peterson (1900-1987), he founded LeTourneau University, a private Christian institution, in Longview, Texas. LeTourneau is widely known as a dedicated Christian philanthropist and philanthropist for Christian purposes, including the camp and conference venue "LeTourneau Christian Center" in Rushville, New York and the Georgia Baptist Conference Center in Toccoa, Georgia. LeTourneau was often referred to by his contemporaries as "God's businessman."
Early life
Robert LeTourneau was very energetic in 1902, at the age of fourteen, he left school, with the blessings, but the attention, of his Christian parents. He moved from Vermont to Duluth, Minnesota, then to Portland, Oregon, where he began work as an apprentice smith at the East Portland Iron Works. When studying the foundry trade and machinist, he studied the mechanics of the International Correspondence Schools course he had been given, even though he never completed the course work. He then moved to San Francisco, where he worked at Moore and Scott Iron Works at his personal invitation. After the earthquake and fire in San Francisco, work was hard to come by. He works at Yerba Buena Power Plant and learns welding, and becomes accustomed to electrical applications. During this time, LeTourneau worked in a number of jobs including wood cutters, layers of bricks, farm hands, miners and carpenters, gaining knowledge of a proven valuable manual trade in the future.
In 1909 he took a car correspondence course that gave himself the title of "Bachelor of Motorcycles" as he learned about vehicle mechanics and graduated by dismantling and reuniting his newly acquired motorcycle in a day. After working on a project to build a bridge across the Stanislaus River, and look directly at Fresno's craftsmen, he was eager to use his mechanical skills. In 1911, LeTourneau started the Superior Garage, in Stockton, as half the owner installed $ 1,000 and built what might be the first building designed specifically for the California auto sales and service. In 1917, he married Evelyn Peterson, the daughter of a drunk company owner from Minnesota.
LeTourneau refused military service because of a permanent neck injury he suffered in a race car accident. During World War I, he worked as a maintenance assistant at the Mare Island Navy Shipyard, in Vallejo, California, where he was trained as an electrical engineer and improved his welding skills. After the war, LeTourneau returned to Stockton and found the Superior Garage business had failed. To repay the debt he took a job repairing the Holt Manufacturing Tractor crawler and then employed by tractor owners up to 40 hectares (160,000 m 2 ) using tractors and scrapers drawn.
Video R. G. LeTourneau
Move to manufacturing
This type of work appealed to LeTourneau, and in January 1920 he bought a used Holt tractor and, with a hired scraper, started the business as a preliminary contractor. In May 1921, he bought a piece of land in Stockton and set up an engineering workshop, where he designed and built several types of scrapers. Combining contracting and manufacturing earthmoving equipment, his business expanded and in 1929 was incorporated in California as "R.G. LeTourneau, Inc."
LeTourneau completed many land-transfer projects during the 1920s and early 1930s, including the Boulder Highway to Hoover Dam, in Nevada, Marysville Levees, Orange County Dam and Newhall Cut-off, in California. In 1933, LeTourneau retired from the contract to devote his attention to the manufacture of ground transfer equipment. In 1935, he built a factory in Peoria, Illinois, and continued expansion of his business saw the establishment of a factory in Toccoa, Georgia, in 1938, in Rydalmere, New South Wales, Australia, in 1941, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. , in 1942, and in Longview, Texas in 1945.
In 1953, LeTourneau sold its entire line of ground transfer equipment to Westinghouse Air Brake Company. He then applied his ingenuity on the development of the concept of electric wheel drive. In 1958, at the age of seventy, LeTourneau re-entered the milling equipment manufacturing business, offering contractors a variety of transport, transport, and handling of high-capacity materials based on the revolutionary electric wheel drive system that it has developed. The electric wheel drive is also called the electric wheel hub.
Maps R. G. LeTourneau
Later career
In 1965, I.C.S. awarded LeTourneau a diploma in engineering, 50 years after he studied the course. LeTourneau was 76 at the time and, in accepting the diploma, cheerfully said to the executive assistant, Nels Stjernstrom: "So now I have a diploma Now I am educated."
In 1966, at the age of 77, LeTourneau handed over the presidency of his company, LeTourneau Technologies to his son, Richard. LeTourneau continues to work every day and can be found on the drawing board in its simple office, devising new ways to move bigger loads faster and more economically.
Private chase
LeTourneau holds many honorable positions throughout his life as a lay Christian, including as a leader in Christian & amp; Missionary Alliance Church, president of the Christian Men Business Committee (CBMC) and president of Gideons International. Being a man with great Christian commitment and dedication, for thirty years he flew thousands of miles each week to maintain Christian engagement throughout the United States and abroad.
LeTourneau serves God and humanity by setting aside 90 percent of his salary and corporate profits for God, and living in the other 10 percent. "You have made the word of God a great and practical reality," radio host Robert Ripley told LeTourneau, then turned to the audience with his own distinctive features flourishing. "And that is a work of faith... believe it or not."
LeTourneau strongly believes in the effectiveness of practical instruction combined with classroom lessons; and, in 1946, he bought an unused military hospital, accompanying land and buildings in Longview. There he founded the LeTourneau Institute of Engineering at Harmon's former General Hospital to provide good technical and mechanical training, traditional college courses, and training for missionary technicians, based on the philosophy of combining Christian work, education, and witness. The LeTourneau Institute of Engineering became a college in its own right, in 1961, and finally earned the status of "university" to become the LeTourneau University. Today, the university is a busy and growing institution, offering degrees in engineering, aerospace and liberal arts, along with strong Christian influences, including three times weekly compulsory education for students.
In 1953, LeTourneau embarked on a development project in the country of Liberia, West Africa, with diverse purposes of colonization, land development, agricultural development, livestock introduction, evangelism and philanthropy activities. In 1954, a colonization project with the same goal as in Liberia was established in Peru, South America.
Stroke and death
In March 1969, LeTourneau suffered a severe stroke that never healed. He died on June 1, 1969, at the age of eighty. In addition to his wife, Evelyn, LeTourneau has lived longer by four sons, Richard, Roy, Ted, and Ben, and a daughter, Louise Dick.
Inheritance and rewards
Renowned throughout the construction world as, "Dean of Earthmoving," LeTourneau is considered today to be the world's greatest inventor of earth and material displacement equipment. Some of the producers of the time had a profound effect on the art of moving land like LeTourneau. Just two years before his death, LeTourneau noted his thoughts on the future of ground-moving equipment: "In the next few years, construction machinery will grow bigger and stronger.Instead of 'ton' capacity, they will all be in 'hundreds of tons 'instead of hundreds of horsepower, they will all be assessed in' thousands' of horsepower.We've seen it in the big freight unit in the mine, and believe me, when contractors and mining companies start looking for bigger and more profitable transport units and land transfer equipment , I will be there, the first with the greatest. "
LeTourneau was active in his company as president and chairman of the board from 1929 to 1966. He also served as chief engineer, personally working with engineers and employees during his tenure. After spending all his life around the ground transfer equipment, LeTourneau was also seen in control of one of his machines, as he was seen attending company affairs. It is well known that he prefers the first. LeTourneau avoids the high life often associated with successful entrepreneurs, preferring to spend his time on the drawing board with engineers designing new machines or spending time on the factory floor supervising their employees.
LeTourneau Hall at Toccoa Falls College is named in his honor. Toccoa Airport, also known as R. G. LeTourneau Field, was built by LeTourneau and named in his honor.
Throughout his career, he received over 30 awards and awards related to engineering, manufacturing, and development of heavy equipment. In 1936, it was presented with "Appreciation of Service Achievements 1931-1935," by Six Companies Incorporated to supply earthmoving equipment to the "Boulder Dam" project. He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1956. The acknowledgment of service to the earth moving industry then came from many other contractors in the industry, and, in February 1958, LeTourneau presented the "Beavers Award" on the third annual dinner award from Beaver , an association of leaders in the heavy construction industry. In honoring LeTourneau, President George J. Atkinson, from a highly respected US contractor, Guy F. Atkinson Company, from San Francisco, said, "There is hardly room in the big industry, which has not benefited through Mr. Geni inventory products LeTourneau. "
See also
- LeTourneau University
References
Bibliography
- LeTourneau, R.G. Human and Mountains Drivers , Autobiography (Prentice-Hall 1960, 1967; Reprint Moody Press 1967, 1972), ISBNÃ, 0-8024-3818-0
"The LeTourneau Legend", History of equipment, ISBN 0-646-27692-1 (Global General Publishing Pty Ltd; 1995, 1998, 3rd edition of 2007) "The LeTourneau Archive", History of equipment, ISBN 0-9585608-0 -3 (Global General Publishing Pty Ltd; 2005) "WABCO Australia", LeTourneau Australia's history, ISBN 0-9585608-1-1 (Global General Publishing Pty. Ltd.) "The WABCO Archive Wheel-Tractor Scrapers", the history of the scraper Letourneau -Westinghouse, ISBN 978-0-9871503-0-1 (Global General Publishing Pty Ltd; 2011)
External links
Some of these articles are taken from http://www.letourneau-inc.com/about/RG_bio.htm, LeTourneau Technology Inc. since the website is closed.
- Road Building Machinery, Stephens Co. At the L.G plant LeTourneau, near Toccoa, Georgia, May 1940. From the Photo Collection of Agriculture and Environmental Science (CAES), University Archives, Hargrett Library, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Web. June 4, 2016.
- Road Construction Machine, Stephens Co. At the L.G plant LeTourneau, near Toccoa, Georgia, May 1940. From the Photo Collection of Agriculture and Environmental Science (CAES), University Archives, Hargrett Library, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Web. June 4, 2016.
- "[Official staff photo of LeTourneau Co. of Georgia, Toccoa, Stephens County, Georgia, ca. 1950-1953?]". Vanishing Georgia . Georgia Digital Library . Retrieved June 5 2016 .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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