Page 55: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2024)

R.W. FERNSTRUM & COMPANYS CELEBRATES 75

Left: [L to R] Paul, Robert

W. and David

Fernsturm.

Right: 25 year ago Fernstrum celebrated its 50th anniversary: [L to R]

Sean, Paul & Todd

Fernstrum.

cancellations, and I had material coming in and no orders for “We’re in a lot of different projects with a lot of different it. We had to lay off many employees, and by the end of 1981, organizations … things you'd never imagine that we would while we ? nally broke even, we were down to 13 employees. have anything to do with,” said Sean.

Our mantra then was ‘Stay alive for ’85!”

Survive it did, and Paul said 1981 was a key pivot point for Looking Back the company as – out of necessity – it started accepting unique, When he re? ects on his 60 years with the company and the one-off design and manufacture projects. “I’d go to talk to the inclusion of his two sons, Sean and Todd; and his grandchil- machine shop to see if I could beg them to build it, and they dren, Rachel and Jeremy in the business today, Paul laughs would machine it because they were hungry too. We started do- as he said “I never thought I'd be in the company! There was a ing one-of-a-kind products, and today, we can build one-of-a- company in lower Michigan [that offered me a] starting wage kinds and make money.” of $1,400 a month. I mentioned that to my father, and he said, ‘I

Today that diversity in product and application – the ability thought you were going to come and work for us.’ to design and build one-offs – is the mantra for R.W. Fern- While going away sounded exciting, Paul said his decision strum & Company employees. R.W. Fernstrum’s Gridcooler to stay and join the family business was the right call. “I made

Keel Coolers are a standard bearer in the maritime and off- the right choice,” said Paul, even though his starting offer was shore energy business, but the applications to diffuse heat are $700/month, half of what the other company was offering. many, and the company has a treasure trove of unique applica- Paul became the third employee in the company, and as is tions. the case in small companies, he wore many hats: from jani-

One was when it received a call in the mid-1970s from tor to secretary to draftsman, as well as being the company

Howard Hughes’ Hughes Corporation for a cooling prob- ‘gopher.’ “When anybody needed something, I had to go for lem it was having with electronics on the Glomar Explorer, it,” Paul said.

a ship that was touted publicly as a seabed mining ship, but in Understanding a company’s history, particularly when it is a reality it was involved in a secret government project to raise tightly held family run company, is often a good window into a sunken Russian submarine. Today, unique applications for its future.

R.W. Fernstrum heat diffusions solutions can be found every- In the case of R.W. Fernstrum that would entail engineering where, including: acumen and a dogged pursuit of new opportunities.

• On emerging generation of wave energy devices. “My father Robert Fernstrum started the business in 1949 • On experimental subsea computer server farms, placed on when he moved back to his home town of Menominee, Mich., the seabed to manage cooling costs. and started selling Gridcooler Keel Coolers,” said Paul. “The • On tsunami early warning buoys across the Paci? c Ocean. origins of our product lines have been a foundation for our suc- • In the space programs, on the self-propelled barge that moves cess.” The Gridcooler Keel Cooler was developed to solve a the solid rocket boosters from Alabama to Cape Canaveral, cooling problem for landing craft during WWII. “My grand- and on the tugs that retrieve those boosters in the Indian father was the chief engineer at Gray Marine and Continental

Ocean. Motors during the war," said Sean. "Gray Marine built landing • On electric boat designs to keep large banks of batteries cool. craft and needed to devise a compact closed-circuit cooling sys- www.marinelink.com 55

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