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This is the 28th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy...
This is the 28th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.
Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and international members, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.
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BY ROGER SCHMIDT
JAMES MERRITT HAIT, whose record as an inventor, designer, developer, and producer of ordnance material is unsurpassed,1 passed away on Jan. 16, 2001, at the age of 94. His substantial contributions to ordnance as an industrial executive beginning in 1940 played a significant role in the free world’s defense preparedness during World War II. Mr. Hait founded, organized, and led the Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) Ordnance Division, which stands as one of the free world’s leaders in the design, development, and production of tracked military vehicles in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s.
James M. Hait was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 19, 1906, and he was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey. Not wanting to be a dairyman, he enrolled in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and in 1928 graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at Rensselaer, he was captain of the baseball team and the hockey team. He was president of his class and president of the “R” Club. His second son, Paul, inherited some of his father’s athletic prowess, winning a gold medal for swimming in the 1960 Rome Olympics.
James spent his entire business and professional career with FMC and its predecessor company. He became a vice president of FMC in 1946, executive vice president in 1956, president in 1960, and chairman of the board from 1966 until his retirement in 1971.
James Hait is best known for his leadership of FMC Corporation. At the start of World War II, FMC operated nine small machinery plants. One of his most notable engineering achievements was in his leadership in the design and construction of an armored amphibious vehicle for the military. The conception of this vehicle started four years prior to Jim’s involvement, when a developer in Florida had the idea of developing a craft to rescue downed aviators and hurricane victims in the Florida Everglades. There were several modifications, the last being in 1937, which resulted in the most significant alterations. A picture of this 1937 version, along with a short story, was published in the October 1937 edition of Life magazine. That version excited the Marine Corps interest in an amphibious tank.2 Upon witnessing the performance of the vehicle in Clearwater, Florida, the Equipment Board at Quantico liked what they saw, and in May 1938 the commandant recommended to the Navy that “steps be taken to procure a pilot model of this type of amphibious boat for further tests under service conditions and during Fleet Landing Exercise.”
A new model was completed in October 1940 and delivered to Quantico in the first week of November. Under the watchful eye of the commandant of the Marine Corps and other high-ranking officers of the Army and Navy, the demo was successful but still had some flaws. On one occasion, the model got bogged down in the Chopawamsic Creek near Quantico Marine Base. On another occasion, when Admiral Ernest J. King, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, took what was to be a short ride, passing over coral 50 yards from shore, the track broke, requiring the admiral to wade in 4 feet of water. That did not leave a favorable impression on the admiral.
Considering these incidents, the tractor was impressive but needed work. The “alligator,” as it was known at that time, measured up in every respect with two exceptions. Its aluminum construction was not considered rugged enough for hard military use, and the track would not endure the abrasive effect of sand and salt water. The tractor was so impressive in every other respect, however, that the Navy negotiated a contract with FMC to include military characteristics with all-steel construction in place of aluminum. FMC was called on to help redesign the alligator. The corporation had plants in nearby Dunedin and Lakeland and had made components for the earlier models. James Hait, then chief engineer of the Peerless Division, organized an engineering group to redesign the alligator. He was responsible for initiating a program of developing and building a tracked amphibious vehicle, which became popularly known as the “water buffalo.”3 At that time, the company was relatively small, but due to his creativity and ability to engender ingenuity in other engineers, it was possible to produce a better and more reliable vehicle than much larger competitors were capable of designing. Using all-steel construction and switching from riveting to welding, considered by Hait to be essential to the main design, two prototypes were built in the Riverside, California, plant of FMC.
The prototype vehicle that was developed and built under James Hait’s direction, in competition with the vehicles of many other companies, won the approval of the Department of Defense, resulting in a business for FMC that eventually became seven times as large as its former operations.
The Marines said that the vehicle was the roughest and most unstoppable vehicle yet designed for the war. Rear Admiral Cochrane, chief of the Bureau of Ships, said, “The victory of Saipan would never have been possible without the job done by the Navy’s versatile and hard-hitting LVTs.” The official designation for the “water buffalo” was LVT (Land Vehicle Tracked). FMC was also awarded a contract for 200 more LVTs, and the first one came off the assembly line in July 1941. By the end of World War II, FMC’s three plants in Lakeland, Florida; Riverside, California; and San Jose, California, built 11,251 LVTs.
President Truman said of the LVT that “…it contributed to the success of our armed forces in Africa, and in addition, rendered valuable service during landings on the Pacific Ocean Islands, and with its unique ability to negotiate surf and beach terrain, moved supplies and equipment to otherwise inaccessible locations, broke trails through the jungle and formed pontoons for temporary bridges permitting the passage of troops.”
Mr. Hait founded, organized, and led the FMC Ordnance Division, which grew into the FMC Defense Equipment Group, which designed and produced defense equipment for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
To keep ahead of expanding business, he was responsible for creating and organizing modern engineering laboratories for developing new concepts. He established the Engineering Systems Group, which embodied all the engineering disciplines and was able to analyze in detail complete systems. Despite his major responsibilities, he started with basic engineering principles irrespective of whether the fields were chemical, fires, films, machinery, or hydraulics, and, more often than not, he introduced new engineering matter that warranted further consideration. In turn, he was responsible for establishing a climate in which engineering was practiced, in the true sense of the word.
J.M. Hait was not just concerned with how current engineering practice can be applied to the solution of problems; he was a visionary in uncovering how new engineering science can be applied to yield a better, but still practical, solution. Through the application of engineering principles, combined with working directly with the foundry, he was able to increase deep well turbine pump effectiveness by at least 10% to establish new industry standards of performance. Another one of his outstanding traits was that, once he accomplished a task, he immediately applied himself to improvements.
As an example of James Hait’s extraordinary influence, his application of electronic developments made it possible to establish the principles utilized in scanning and aligning peaches automatically so that each peach is oriented with its suture plane before it passes to peeling and pitting machines.
Rensselaer awarded James Hait an honorary doctorate degree in engineering in June 1962. He held 76 patents for various types of pumps, food processing and agricultural machinery, and amphibious vehicles. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Ordnance Hall of Fame, and the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame. He served as a member of advisory boards and councils for Santa Clara University, Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology, and the National Industrial Conference Board. He was also a member of the Rensselaer Technical Society, Phalanx Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Automotive Engineers, Association of the United States Army, American Ordnance Association, and the National Defense Industrial Association, for which he was a trustee.
He was a member of many corporate boards, including the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Wells Fargo Bank, Varian Associates, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Arthur Little, Inc.
Outside of work, he enjoyed the wide-open spaces, especially when he engaged in hunting.4 He owned a ranch in Idaho and relished battling the deep snow he encountered there. Mr. Hait moved to Idaho in the mid-1990s, spending each summer at his ranch in McCall.
On April 19, 1971, more than 500 FMC employees gathered to give James an affectionate send-off. Jim’s career is a prime example of using one’s engineering genius to produce a better-than-asked-for product. His associates described him as a tough but compassionate leader, driving himself harder than he ever drove others. They admired his creativity and ability to use engineering science for more practical and economical solutions. “He was just a very brilliant engineer,” said Adolph M. Quilici, who retired in 1993 as vice president of FMC’s defense group. “He was a leader. People liked to work for Jim.”
His wife of 64 years, Ruth Hait, passed away in 1993. They had two children.
_____________________ 1US Army Ordnance Corps. Hall of Fame: Mr. James M. Hait. Online at: https://goordnance.army.mil/HallOfFame/1980/1983/hait.html. 2Clifford KJ. 1973. Progress and Purpose: A Developmental History of the United States Marine Corps 1900-1970, page 56-57. History and Museums Division Headquarters, United States Marine Corps. 3James M. Hait, 94, Led Development of FMC’s ‘Water Buffalo’ Vehicle. The Mercury News. Jan 16, 2001, page 5B. 4Schmelzer RW. 1980. James M. Hait ’28. In: Published Rensselaer Histories, 21-22. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Online at: https://digitalassets.archives.rpi.edu/do/de9a5519-aa2f-45f0-bf31-9812994f31b3#page/24/mode/2up/search/james+hait.