HARRY E. CHESEBROUGH (1909-1998)

BY ROGER SCHMIDT

HARRY ELMER CHESEBROUGH, former corporate vice president of Chrysler Corporation and general manager of the Plymouth-Desoto-Valiant Division, passed away March 9, 1998, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was 88 years old. Mr. Chesebrough was a resident of Grand Rapids and previously lived in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Harry was born on July 13, 1909, in Ludington, Michigan, a little town on the Lake Michigan shoreline, to Elmer C. and Nellie Mae (Hamilton) Chesebrough. His father was a traveling salesperson, so the family moved quite frequently. Before college Harry held various jobs to earn money — delivering papers, clerking at food stores, and later managing a food store. He also spent many summers working on his relatives’ farm.

Harry attended Grand Rapids Junior College for two years and then transferred to the University of Michigan, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1932. At that time, there were few jobs, and one of his professors suggested that he apply to a graduate training program launched by Chrysler Corporation the previous year. After waiting 1.5 days to speak to the man responsible for the program, Harry learned that 750 applicants had already applied for 8 to 10 openings. He submitted his application but wrote off the opportunity as an impossibility.

His parents attended his commencement because it was very important to them. After the ceremony, they drove past the Kelvinator plant en route from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit. His father asked whether he had applied for a job at the plant. Harry explained that he did not try because he had heard that everybody who tried was unsuccessful. Stopping the car, his father said that if Harry did not try, he would not know. Harry entered the office, which was open even though it was Saturday, and expressed his interest in a job to the person at the counter. He explained that he knew how to read blueprints. The plant needed an employee with those skills, and Harry was hired on the spot. He reported to work on Monday at 7:30 a.m. After working at the plant for about one month, he received a telegram from Chrysler Corporation (forwarded by his mother) that offered him a job and requested an immediate reply. The next day, Harry explained the situation to his boss and asked for his advice. His boss said, “Take the job,” and July 25, 1932, became Harry’s first day of a long, productive career at Chrysler Corporation.

Upon joining the Chrysler Corporation as a student engineer in 1932, Harry began a climb through several engineering assignments: project engineer in the Mechanical Laboratories, supervisor of the Transmission Laboratory, supervisor of road test operations, project engineer, chief resident engineer, assistant chief body engineer, chief body engineer, and executive engineer for product planning and programming. In 1957 he was appointed corporate director of product volume planning, and in rapid succession became corporate vice president and general manager of the Plymouth Division, vice president of quality and reliability, and vice president of product planning. In 1964 he was appointed vice president of product planning and development. He directed staff in the Engineering, Research, Styling, Domestic Product Planning, International Product Planning, and Product Cost Planning Offices. Harry retired in 1973 after 41 years at Chrysler.

Although he held many high-level management positions, he was a hands-on engineer who led the design and development of manual and automatic transmissions for automobiles and trucks; body structures for automobiles and trucks, including frame and unitized construction; testing techniques for experimental components and prototype vehicles; systems and machines for quality and reliability control of corporate-wide manufacturing and assembly operations; programs for the sale of the product; and programs to create new products by administering the activities of the Domestic Product Planning, International Product Planning, Engineering, Research, Styling, and Product Cost Planning Offices. He was responsible for the creation of systems, machines, and hardware to ensure that the company’s motor vehicles complied with the new federal regulations pertaining to safety and air pollution.

In 1934, after two years with Chrysler, Harry received an M.E. in mechanical engineering from the Chrysler Institute of Engineering. He was then given the responsibility for the Road Test Department, which included the whole vehicle test and evaluation operation. With a fleet of around 100 automobiles, he oversaw a garage capable of handling about 40 automobiles at one time. In those days Chrysler did not have a proving ground. Testing was performed on highways across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Employees drove five automobiles back and forth between the East and West coasts, including up and down Pikes Peak to test whether the transmissions would jump out of gear or whether the engine would overheat.

During the late 1930s, Harry was deeply involved in Chrysler’s efforts to support the country’s efforts to prepare for war. Chrysler built a tank arsenal for the U.S. government north of Detroit and assumed the contract for its construction and operation. The government indicated that the tanks had been designed at the Rock Island Arsenal and that Chrysler should focus on laying out the plant, installing the machinery, creating the parts, and assembling the tanks. Harry explained that Chrysler did all of that, but the tanks coming off the line did not work.

Once the tanks were redesigned and working, the government stated that the engines used in the tanks were needed for airplanes. Chrysler then had to figure out how to generate 400+ horsepower with an engine it did not have. As Harry explained, someone jokingly suggested, “Why don’t we hook four or five Chrysler engines together to generate the horsepower?” As it turned out, this was not a harebrained idea, and Chrysler was able to design the tank to accept five Chrysler engines, including a radiator. Harry spent six weeks at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds having the tanks tested for certification by the Army. While at the Proving Grounds, he received a request from his boss to return to Detroit because Chrysler had just received a contract to build airplane wings. Harry was asked to oversee the engineering at Curtiss-Wright Corporation in Columbus, Ohio. He also lined up the plant to eventually build seven airplane wings per day. That was in 1942.

When the war ended, Harry was charged with closing out the airplane business, reinstalling all the automotive equipment, and returning Chrysler to building automobiles. He said that it took about 90 days to convert the plants back to manufacturing automobiles. Harry remained as chief engineer of the Desoto Division, responsible for converting the plant back to manufacturing automobiles. After two years, he joined the Dodge plant, which was Chrysler’s largest automobile assembly plant at the time, as chief engineer. He was also responsible for foundries, machine shops, presses plants, and forge plants. After one year in this role, he returned to central engineering headquarters and became chief body engineer responsible for all the car lines: Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, and Chrysler.

Chrysler identified the need for a new type of facility and tapped Harry and his 20 years of experience to help plan, design, and layout facilities for specialized components and operations that had become an integral part of the automotive business but were not necessary before the war — molding of plastics, upholstery for autos, use of synthetic materials, and safety structures. The team pushed cars down hills to see what would happen to them. This approach matured into the development of more rigid testing equipment and conditions — shaking, pulling, and compressing — that would enable repeatable tests of performance.

Harry also managed the design of windshield wipers. Previously, windshield wipers operated via engine vacuum; when the car accelerated to climb a hill, the vacuum decreased and the wipers stopped when needed most. Harry described the internal conversations about how to improve the design, for example, operating them with air, hydraulics, or electricity. However, air was noisy, air compressors were not efficient, and hydraulics would leak oil on passengers’ legs. The team decided to pursue electricity but no economical electric motors were powerful enough for the job. The team eventually developed a motor and manufactured the first electric windshield wipers ever installed on automobiles.

In those days, quality control techniques were becoming a profoundly serious problem for the automobile business. Harry helped to start a quality control program within the Chrysler Corporation, which involved traveling to Chrysler plants across the world, including in Australia, South Africa, and Europe. Harry became concerned about the plants in Europe with which he worked very closely. He assumed management of the Simca plant in France and subsequently of plants in Spain, England, and Switzerland. After four years in Europe, he decided that he wanted to return home to Detroit. He did not mind traveling two to three months at a time, so Chrysler sent him to Japan twice, for two months each time, and at the end of that tour Harry retired at age 64.

Harry’s commitment to professional societies was nearly as strong as that to his career. During his career he was national president for the Society of Automotive Engineers. In this role, in 1960, Harry said, “Automotive engineering knows no boundaries.” Although the Society of Automotive Engineers had always been international in scope, these words were a call to action for the organization to match words and deeds. A tour of Europe solidified relationships started in the 1950s through an ongoing cooperative relationship with FISITA, the international network for automotive engineers. As two-term president of the American National Standards Institute (formerly the American Standards Association), his leadership and initiative resulted in the granting of a charter to the newly named organization, which is of national importance in the field of manufacturing for all types of products. He was also a director of the Chrysler Institute of Engineering and the Engineering Society of Detroit, a trustee of the Rackham Engineering Foundation, and a member of the American Society of Body Engineers, the American Society for Quality Control, and the National Academy of Engineering. Mr. Chesebrough was also a member of the University of Michigan Industrial Committee, the U‑M Club of Greater Detroit, the U‑M Executive Committee 55 Million Dollar Campaign for a New Engineering Building, the U‑M College of Engineering 1974 Capital Campaign, the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Economic Club of Detroit, and the Detroit Athletic Club. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1967.

Harry was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy (Chapin). His distinguished career integrating American engineering know-how with local manufacturing practices left an indelible mark on the automotive industry.

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Much of the information in this tribute was obtained from an interview of Harry E. Chesebrough conducted by R.T. King on Nov. 4, 1981. The audio of this interview is stored at Indiana University’s Oral History Research Center.