Mike Ball, proprietor of Woodrow Engineering, talks concerning the previous letterpress machines he fine-tuned to print exact ruler scales on wooden as an alternative of paper. Photograph by Craig Sterrett.
Woodrow Engineering has operated south of Ellison Bay since 1971
Mike Ball stated his dad didn’t love the identify ‘Woodrow Engineering,’ as a result of it didn’t exactly describe what the enterprise did.
By means of the years, Ball grew to like the label for the enterprise in a 16,000-square-foot former cherry-processing plant south of Ellison Bay that has housed his mild manufacturing plant since 1971.
This yr, he’s promoting off his inventories, instruments and gear to ultimately promote the constructing.
“Individuals have been driving by for 40 years and so they have completely no concept what we do,” Ball stated.
He stated he’s “not an ego man,” so he didn’t want his identify on the signal outdoors. He additionally beloved the mysteriousness of “Engineering” on the signal. Individuals left him alone whereas he constructed the enterprise into the nation’s largest producer of professional-scale rulers for the development business, and the most important producer of foot measures.
With as many as seven full-time workers and some part-timers, Woodrow Engineering created custom-imprinted rulers that building firm operators, architects and engineers purchased in bulk and handed out as a useful gizmo, and as promoting.
Woodrow workers exactly lower wooden strips for 6-inch, 12-inch and 18-inch guidelines. They used numerous shaper saws with custom-fit heads to create grooves to exactly accommodate vinyl scales on the fringe of the ruler. On the again, they printed metric conversion tables or scales as positive as inches in 30ths and inches in 60ths for blueprint-reading.
Mike Ball’s father, Charles, acquired the rights to fabricate the RITZ Stick, America’s first standardized foot-measure gadget that was developed earlier than World Struggle I. Photograph by Craig Sterrett. Woodrow Engineering has been a significant producer of civil-engineering rulers and custom-imprinted rulers that doubled as building business promoting swag. Photograph by Craig Sterrett. Mike Ball holds the foldable, take-home foot-measure gadget he invented and patented. Photograph by Craig Sterrett.
Ball modified classic Golding letterpress machines so the 2 hand-operated machines would gently print scales on 3/Sixteenth- to three/8-inch-thick wooden as an alternative of paper.
“It was that no one may print on wooden like we do, with this element,” Ball stated.
Two entrepreneurs began the enterprise in 1946 in Chicago. The 2 routinely named companies after presidents, and named this one for Woodrow Wilson. When Mike’s dad, Charles Ball, purchased the enterprise, the majority of orders got here from publishers who wanted scales in picas and factors for measuring letter sizes and spacing. Charles took the enterprise in extra instructions, shifting it from Clark Road in Chicago to a bigger plant in Northbrook, Illinois. Charles moved operations to the constructing close to Ellison Bay in 1971. Mike joined the enterprise in 1972, helped to develop it, and acquired it in 1986.
For years, the enterprise printed scales in Chicago for the producer of the RITZ Stick – the nation’s first normal foot-measure device.
In 1913, inventor Oliver Cornelius Ritz-Waller, annoyed by inconsistent shoe and foot sizing, developed the measure and patented it in 1916. Mike stated one in every of Ritz-Waller’s largest orders got here from the U.S. army, which wanted to suit troopers for boots earlier than World Struggle I. Within the early Sixties, Ritz-Waller’s widow requested Charles Ball to purchase the Ritz Stick enterprise, one in every of many gadgets Ritz-Waller invented and manufactured on the American Computerized Units Co., Mike famous.
Mike later turned an inventor, too.
Mike patented a plastic, fold-up, home-use model of the foot-measure – The Footer Household Foot Measure – pondering of fogeys whose childrens’ ft had been rising quickly.
Mike’s son additionally was a creator. Michael Jr. had the thought about 10 years in the past to package deal the “Footer” with a tailor’s tape, development chart and exercise e book that households may use to report heights, weights, pals’ names, favourite meals’ and extra as they grew up.
In 2015, that Watch Me Develop package deal received a bronze medal within the nationwide Moonbeam Youngsters’s Ebook Awards.
Ball has a number of hundred RITZ Sticks left. Till the proliferation of huge field shops within the Eighties, gross sales got here simply to wholesalers who offered for mom-and-pop shoe shops, he stated. One buyer, Academy Sports activities, a sporting items chain just like Dick’s, orders a number of these now.
Ball stated he may in all probability keep in enterprise 5 extra years, filling numerous orders for patrons similar to 4imprint.com.
“There’s nothing unsuitable with the product and there’s nonetheless demand,” he stated – though he stated he doesn’t understand how many individuals will use rulers 10 years from now.
Difficulties in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain points and the issue of discovering workers who can afford to dwell in northern Door County curbed his enthusiasm. The surprising dying of his son, Michael, two years in the past from cardiac arrest additionally took a toll.
“The challenges that was enjoyable and thrilling to the younger man, the go-getter, simply weren’t a lot enjoyable anymore,” he stated.
The enterprise did effectively sufficient in its good years – cranking out a whole lot of hundreds of rulers per yr between 2000 and 2008 – that he didn’t must promote the enterprise to realize worth to retire. He’ll simply promote the constructing after he empties it – and appears ahead to having fun with retirement together with his spouse on their property close to Gills Rock.
