Entrepreneurs Earned Degrees, Remained Lifelong Friends

John W. Memmen and John R. Warren were new University of Illinois electrical engineering students in 1955. Both had completed pre-engineering elsewhere (Memmen at Bradley University and Warren at Southern Illinois University). Both had completed a tour of duty in the service (Memmen in the Navy and Warren in the Marines). Both were married and both had two young children. Both had just moved into "Stadium Terrace," a veterans' housing area within a stone's throw of the football stadium. Both had completed electronics technician training in the service, and both had completed basic TV repair & service courses. Both were employed at a local TV sales and service company shortly after arriving in Champaign.

Then they decided to "go it on their own" and start their own TV sales and service business. They located an old house, formerly a piano store, on University Avenue within walking distance of the engineering campus. They found out that it was owned by Bernt Larson, a professor of engineering at UIUC. The first floor had a big "store front" window for display and room for a service bench, desk, and storage, plus an apartment. The upstairs had a couple more apartments.

Prof. Larson was very helpful when he learned of our plans. We leased the "store" area and set up shop. It took a while to build up a business, but soon it was running just about right for two full-time students in engineering. In those days, the hospitals didn't have TV in any of their rooms, as is standard now. So we found that we could rent "table model" TV sets to people who were going to be in the hospital for a few days.

At that time, you could receive Channel 3 on "rabbit ear" antennas and just about nothing else with any kind of antenna. (Eventually a UHF station was also available, and we did put up a few outside UHF antennas then.)

We also found out that a major Chicago retailer (Polk Bros.) had a warehouse full of old "trade-in" TVs. We rented U-Haul trailers and made several trips there. We had a pretty good feel for what would sell, and we knew that we could fix any of the available brands then. We also knew about what price we could expect to get for different models and that the most expense we would likely incur would be if the picture tube needed to be replaced. A few did, but quite often we could just plug them in and they would work, as is. However we had to take the risk, because that is just the way we bought them at the warehouse--as is.

We also became Sylvania Dealers, through contacts that Memmen had from their district offices in Peoria. We hired an older retired gentleman who lived in one of the upstairs apartments to answer the phone and the door while we were at school. We made service calls every night and on weekends. We charged $3.50, although the going rate was $4.50 at the time. We named our business University TV. We ran the business, very successfully until graduation time approached (Warren in August 1957 and Memmen in January 1958), and then we sold it to another student we found by advertising in the school paper.

Eventually, most of those TV sales and service businesses folded up, as TV sets became more reliable and transistorized. At the time they were all "vacuum tube sets" and vacuum tubes did burn out and had to be replaced. That accounted for probably 80% of our repairs with the other 20% requiring analysis and "bench work" at our shop.

After graduation, we both ended up in the Aerospace Industry in Southern California, working for General Dynamics for a while. Memmen then went to Hughes, and Warren went to TRW Space Technology Labs. Memmen died in 1990 and Warren retired in 1994.

We remained lifetime friends. Even though Warren moved to Idaho in later years, we still visited and talked technology often.

That was an interesting business venture at the time and it served the purpose of putting us through school (with some help from the G.I. Bill) while raising our families.

John R. Warren, BSEE (communications option), 1957
John W. Memmen, BSEE (communications option), 1958

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Travel in 1926

My father, Herbert L. White (now 101 years old), class of 1926, tells this story about life long ago:

He wanted his parents, who lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, to meet the woman he planned to marry, so they drove there from Urbana in June of 1927. His car was a Chevrolet with a rumble seat. Rumble seats were a lot of fun, he says--if you could get a friend to drive the car, you could lift the trunk lid (which became the back of the rumble seat), and sit in the rumble seat with your girlfriend!

Unfortunately, on this trip, he had to do his own driving. On the way, they discovered that the highway (possibly the bridge across the Mississippi) was flooded, so they had to drive to the next town and take a ferry. The ferry just barely had room for their car, but it did take them to the other side of the river. On the way back, the railroad let them put their car on a flat car while they rode in a passenger car as far a Memphis, since the highway was still flooded. After Memphis they managed to drive safely back to Urbana. Apparently the trip was successful--he later married the woman and had three children.

At that point I believe he was working for the Illinois Water Survey. He later worked as superintendent of Sanitation and Safety at the U of I until his retirement in 1968. He is now living at Friends' Homes in Greensboro, N.C.

Betty Freeborn

C. C. Wiley Traveling Award
What an experience! What an education! What an opportunity to see and learn about highway transportation 46 years ago at the very beginning of the Interstate System construction. The C. C. Wiley Traveling Award (a Civil Engineering Department senior award) provided the chance to visit with the leading transportation professionals in education, government, and construction.

We were honored to be the co-winners of the first award in 1955. We drove 10,000 miles in 11 weeks, visiting 15 western states. Gasoline costs were 30 cents per gallon and the very best motel cost $6.00 per night. Also, salaries for graduate engineers started at $400 per month.

Side trips on the weekends allowed us to visit many scenic areas, such as Garden of the Gods, Grand Tetons, Yosemite, and Carlsbad Caverns. While visiting more than 30 agencies and private companies, our talks with those responsible for various aspects of the nation's transportation system provided grand insight to a profession we were just entering. Even decades later, we encountered transportation professionals met on that trip who remembered us.

There were many memorable events. The highway construction procedures studied in class were brought to life in Kansas; true applied research on materials was demonstrated in Utah; traffic flow principles were put into practice in Colorado and California; proof that large culverts are needed in desert areas when the rains fall was demonstrated in Arizona. Upon completion of the trip, we agreed that the roughest, toughest route we experienced was in the northern California mountains. The best, most modern highways were also in California. These freeways in Los Angeles became part of the Eisenhower Interstate system.

The return to the U of I campus for advanced studies to further prepare for professional careers was greatly enhanced by these experiences. We were eager to return to our U of I sweethearts, (whom we each later married) and the camaraderie among the four of us has lasted to this day.

Dan C. Dees, BSCE MS 1957 (Oblong, Ill.)
Joseph W. Guyton, BSCE MS 1957 (Canton, Ill.)

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From the Prairie to the Himilayas

I grew up in Urbana, Ill., first at 1204 West Green Street, now the location of the Mechanical Engineering Building, and then at 1116 California Avenue, now the location of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

I saw Red Grange make his famous four touchdowns against Michigan in 12 minutes in 1924, at the new Memorial Stadium. I later played a little football for Bob Zuppke in 1932.

I was the first Urbana High School athlete to be selected on an All-State football team, as an end, in 1930. As a freshman at the University of Illinois, I was on the Theta Chi basketball team that won the University Championship in 1932.

Professor O. A. Leutwiler, head of Mechanical Engineering, was a strict taskmaster. Slide rules were the calculators for engineering students in those days and if we didn’t use the long ones and get the answers to problems exactly right (even if we used the correct method), we got no credit.

Yellow corduroy pants were the "uniform" for engineer students in those days, but come the spring of our senior year Professor Leutwiler saw that we changed to suits for our interviews with recruiting companies.

His son, Lester Leutwiler, BSME 1929, was the first Chief Illiniwek. He and I both became Eagle Scouts, and we learned the Illini tribe dances while in Troop 6 in Urbana.

Irving Seely, a classmate and son of Fred B. Seely, head of the Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Department, was best man at my wedding in 1939.

I worked for Exxon Research and Engineering Co. for 40 years and had overseas assignments in Sicily, England, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Iran, Libya, Singapore, Japan, and Argentina. I’ve traveled in more than 100 countries, including all the continents, even Antarctica, and trekked to 14,000 feet in the Himalayas in Nepal.

I’m still playing golf at 88, trying to break my age! And I just finished "The Story of my Life, 1912-2001," all 565 pages of it.

H. Gordon Faulkner
BSME 1935, Pi Tau Sigma 1934

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Teaching Career Spanned Departments