His grandfather, Frederick, was a tailor who passed the trade on to his father, Paul. His mother, whose grandparents emigrated from Switzerland to Urbana, a businesswoman, pianist and wrote poetry.
Howard S. Brembeck was born in Wabash Feb. 9, 1910, but from the age of 5 until graduating from high school, he worked on the farm. The beginnings attributed to his work ethics.
These were the humble beginnings of a man who would become a successful international businessman and the epitome of the self-made man.
Brembeck's name is mostly recognized as the founder of Chore-Time Inc., and Brock Manufacturing and later the holding company CTB Inc., Milford; Fourth Freedom Forum, Goshen; and his work in rebuilding Oakwood Inn at Lake Wawasee.
His life story is told in a book "What a World! What a Life!" containing recollections and reflections of his life published in January 2003 by Fourth Freedom Forum.
He noted in the book his young life was mostly work with very little time for play, hunting or fishing, which he came to enjoy. He was brought up in the way of the Bible - practical guides and was a member of the Evangelical Church, Urbana.
Brembeck stated he became a man at the age of 14 when he went from knickers to long pants and started working on threshing crews. But business was always a part of his life.
As a small child using stones from the creek, he created a stockyard of cattle, sheep and pigs. He then caught fur bearing animals and sold the fur using his profits to invest in beehives from which he sold honey to a general store. With that money he purchased calves that he fed and marketed.
"I always found doing business to be a lot of fun, but I was now getting old enough that I had to think about what I was going to do after graduating from high school. I thought I would like to go to a big university, learn about economics" he wrote in his book.
But the cost of college was expensive. He used a team of horses to work on road building, earning $5 a day. He would have to work year round to earn enough money to attend the University of Chicago, the leader in economic education. He did attend the university, but with the closing of the bank that held all his earnings, he packed up and went home.
He landed a job with International Harvester, Fort Wayne, as a mail handler, but by the time he paid for room and board and a movie once or twice a week, his $14.75 a week left him nothing.
A first cousin to his mother, D.E. Speicher, offered him a job at his company Ä Cyclone Manufacturing Co., Urbana. Here he learned to become a manufacturer. Speicher taught him everything about the business from receiving materials to billing, to operating the machinery. After a year or two he requested to become a salesman.
His travels of the country began and he sold poultry equipment to Woolworth's, G.C. Murphy, McCrory, seed stores and pet stores.
Brembeck also worked in the company's engineering department where he worked to develop improvements to products and create new products, receiving a few patents.
He and his wife, Myra, met on his birthday in 1933. By Oct. 3, they were married and combined their honeymoon with a sales trip.
Their first home was on Third Street in North Manchester where they lived for two years before purchasing a home on the banks of the Eel River in North Manchester. Their daughter, Caryl, was born in 1938.
In the late 1930s he built a drive-in restaurant in Peru "Snack Harbor." The restaurant was open May through September and operated by his wife with him helping in the evenings and weekends.
He was the plant superintendent at Cyclone when during World War II he helped carry out the conversion of manufacturing poultry equipment to produce materials needed by the armed forces.
However, chances of advancement at Cyclone were limited and he wanted to improve his position and income. He was offered a job with United Cooperatives, Alliance, Ohio, as head of the hardware department and management of a barn equipment plant.
The Brembecks moved to Alliance, Ohio, in 1945, selling their drive-in restaurant.
He rubbed shoulders with many legends in the farm cooperative movement and had the chief responsibility of purchasing farm hardware supplies for retail stores. He was also a buyer and traveled from coast to coast increasing his knowledge and testing his skills in the environment.
He wrote it was 3 a.m. on a day in January 1952 he awakened with a thought of his future. "I realized in a very powerful and personal way that we live in a nation with a free enterprise system where anyone has the right to start a business of any kind. I clearly understood that the time had come for me to start a manufacturing business of my own."
This was the start of Chore-Time Equipment, a name he chose in relation to the products he would make. Working at Cyclone and United Cooperatives provided him the knowledge to serve as the foundation for creation and production of some of Chore-Time's breakthrough products.
The company was first located in the basement of their Ohio home. The staff was Brembeck, his wife and his daughter. A year later Forrest Ramser was hired as the sales manager and Kenneth Hagens as the engineer. The factory was then moved to Hagens' basement. The company was more involved in experimental work than production.
Because of his love for Lake Wawasee, he wanted Chore-Time to have a permanent home near there and chose Milford. In 1954 the business was moved into a garage which they rented (the former home of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, at the corner of Main and Fourth streets).
Myra was the bookkeeper and neither she nor her husband received any pay. To financially support themselves, Brembeck took a job as a salesman for Star Tank and Boat Company, Goshen.
By 1958 Chore-Time was earning profits. Hagens wanted to start his own company and wanted out of the business. The company was now manufacturing long trough poultry watering controlled by a solenoid valve. Then came the centerless flexible auger and the round pan feeder.
By the late 1950s bulk feed trucks arrived. This gave Brembeck an opportunity for a product to dovetail his product line Ä a bin line. He attempted to sell the idea to two businesses, neither of which were interested. However, he was given the opportunity to build the feed bins at night at Star Tank and Boat due to an offer by Harold Schrock. Brembeck named the business Brock, combining both men's last names.
Brembeck built a home in Martin Manor, Goshen, facing the Elkhart River. The family moved into their limestone home in 1954, where both he and his wife remained until their deaths.
Chore-Time moved to SR 15 and Brock's manufacturing moved into the old garage. Both companies grew and in 1962 Brock moved across from Chore-Time on SR 15.
"From the beginning Chore-Time and Brock were separate companies built on two different formulas," wrote Brembeck. He eventually created CTB as a holding company for stock of both businesses. He stated this move "depersonalized Chore-Time and Brock."
Brembeck retired Dec. 31, 1995, and a reception honoring him and his wife was held May 21, 1996. He was never involved in the business again. Yet, it made it possible for him to create the Fourth Freedom Forum, a new Oakwood Inn and the Oakwood Christian Leadership Academy.
Fourth Freedom
The creation of Fourth Freedom Forum was from an experience Brembeck had in September 1979. He was riding a bus in England and had a vision of Europe and the Soviet Union at peace. He first created Alternative World Foundation in 1982, a precursor to Fourth Freedom Forum. He also pursued an education in foreign affairs. The more he studied the more convinced he became economic powers could be exercised through trade and sanctions to achieve goals that could never be reached by the threat of military action. The forum was created in 1985. It is a leading organization dedicated to using incentives and sanctions, the power to give and to withhold to achieve a world subject to the rule of law.
Oakwood
As a boy the Brembeck family would travel to Wawasee either by the Big Four Railroad or the interurban and changed to the B & O Railroad at Milford Junction, getting off at Syracuse and taking a horse driven carriage to Oakwood. He recalls Oakwood Inn as one of his favorite spots in Indiana. His parents had become acquainted at Oakwood.
For the third time in his life Ä the first two being the creation of Chore-Time and Fourth Freedom Forum Ä he felt he was told to do something he had not thought of doing. "The third time I was walking along the beach at Lake Wawasee in front of the old Oakwood Hotel. My brother, Cole, had been twisting my arm for over a year to get me to build a new hotel for Oakwood. I had been very much against it," he wrote.
On June 18, 1994, Brembeck met with some of the foundation directors and a contractor. A new hotel would cost an estimated $8 million. "But as with my other dreams, everything was very nebulous except the one central thought, which was this case was simply to make Oakwood a little bit of heaven on earth," he wrote. Following the building of Oakwood Inn, which cost more than $8 million, and the death of Cole in June 1996, he established the Oakwood Christian Leadership Academy, a private foundation, for the purpose of training young leaders to conduct their lives and careers according to Christ's teachings.
"The most exhilarating experience of my life has been the feeling that I am part of something really great Ä something that reaches beyond the stars, something that makes the stars, a knowledge and an energy surpassing our comprehension that moves with planned precision far beyond the power of imagination.
"When I think of these things I can't help saying to myself, "What a God! What a universe! What a world! What a life!' and I am overcome with joy." |
