Herbert A. Kern, Sr.

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Herbert Kern

Herbert Arthur Kern, Sr. was an industrialist and member of the Theosophical Society in America. He is remembered for his work in setting up the Theosophical Investment Trust and in his generous support of the Society through The Kern Foundation.

Early life and education

Herbert Kern was born at Lake Elmo, Minnesota on August 30, 1890. His parents were Charles Kern, a farmer, and Josephine Combacker Kern.

John Kern wrote of the engineering ability that his father exhibited even as a boy:

He was innately interested in how things worked and why. One day in 1907, after pedaling to high school in nearby Stillwater, he answered an ad in the local paper by a resident doctor. The doctor had just purchased an automobile, the first one in the city, and he wanted to hire a part-time chauffeur. My dad was the only person to answer that ad, as no one else (including my father) had personally seen an automobile. He got the job, we presume, simply on his bravado and demeanor. He told me he arrived an hour early for the interview, read the manual from cover to cover, and ended up driving the good doctor out to White Bear Lake to see a patient that very afternoon!

After attending local public schools, the young man entered the University of Minnesota, where a new department was newly established - Chemical Engineering. Kern completed a Bachelor of Science degree in 1913 and a Chem.E. in 1914. While he was an undergraduate, he became acquainted with Freemasonry. He became a Mason and joined a Masonic fraternity at the university, called Acacia.

In 1914, "he was employed in Minneapolis, Minn., by the Pure Oil Co., Chicago, Ill., to organize the company's first research laboratory, where, as its first research chemist, he worked on additives and detergents until 1917, after which he was associated for a short time with H. K. Stahl Oil Co.

Military service

In World War I, Herbert Kern joined the Army Quartermaster Corps and was stationed in Chicago. His responsibility was the purchase and inspection of fuels. In 1919 he was honorably discharged with the rank of captain.

Professional career

Mr. Kern was co-founder of Nalco Chemical Company and president from 1928 to 1956.

In 1920, Herbert A. Kern founded the Chicago Chemical Co., which sold water-treatment chemicals such as sodium aluminate. Two years later, P. Wilson Evans started the Aluminate Sales Corp. In 1928, a merger between these two companies created the National Aluminate Corp., based in Chicago. Annual sales neared $4 million by the end of the 1930s, and the company continued to grow thereafter. By 1959, when the company's name changed to Nalco Chemical, annual sales approached $50 million. Sales rose to $400 million by the mid-1970s, when Nalco—now a Fortune 500 company operating on a global scale—had about 1,700 workers in the Chicago area. In the 1980s, still specializing in the production of water-treatment chemicals, the company built a large new technical center in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. At the end of the 1990s, Nalco was purchased by Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, a French company. Shortly thereafter, the company's name was changed to Ondeo Nalco, reflecting the name for its parent company's water-treatment divisions. As of the early 2000s, Nalco maintained its Naperville headquarters and continued to be a world leader in its field.

Association with Theosophical Society

In 1947 Mr. Kern donated a much-needed water softener system to the Society headquarters estate.

Later years

In 1956 Mr. Kern stepped down as president, and took on the role of board chairman until 1961, when he was designated as honorary chairman. He was a director and held a seat on the executive committee. He passed away in La Grange, Illinois on February 28, 1963 following a long illness.