Herbert A. Kern, Sr.

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. On September 20, 1917, he was married to Edit Louis Speckman in Minneapolis.

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

During his military service, Herbert Kern met Frederick Salathe, Jr., a professor of chemistry at Indiana University.

[From him, Kern] learned about using sodium aluminates as a flocculating agent (a means of separating out and precipitating suspended particles in fluids).

He saw the potential for developing the use of this process to clarify both industrial and domestic water supplies. After the war ended, and with financial backing from the family of this professor, he founded the Chicago Chemical Company to produce and market this technology.

National Aluminate Corporation

In a brief summary of company history,

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.

Mr. Kern was president of Nalco Chemical Company from 1928 to 1956, then from 1956-1961 was the chief executive office and chairman of the board. He continued serving as a director and member of the executive committee until his death. Numerous products were introduced by Nalco and related businesses, such as these:

• Boiler water treatments
• Sodium aluminate
• Zeolite

• Catalysts for high-octane gasoline production
• Diesel cooling system pellets
• Petroleum cracking catalysts

• Combustion catalysts
• Fuel-oil treatments
• Crude-oil emulsion breakers

"Under Kern's leadership the company was developed into a worldwide enterprise operating eleven plants, producing 400 water-conditioning and industrial-process chemicals." Herbert Kern received patents for many processes, such as water softening, water clarification, treatment of contents of cooling systems, and washing detergents. A great supporter of laboratory research, he was also innovative in developing relationships with stockholders and employees.

Association with Theosophical Society

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

Civic and social activities

Mr. Kern was active in many civic and social organizations.

Kern was chairman of the Southwest District of the Boy Scouts of America, Chicago, and a director of the Chicago YMCA... In 1953 [he established] the Nalco Foundation for the purpose of receiving and administering funds for various scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, and he served as president and a director of the latter. he belonged to the American Chemical Society, Alpha Chi Sigma, Acacia, the Masonic order (32d degree), the University Club of Chicago, and the Hinsdale (Ill.) Golf Club. His religious affiliation was with the Union Church, Hinsdale. Politically he was a Republican.

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. He left two sons: John Charles Kern, who succeeded him in heading The Kern Foundation, and Herbert Arthur Kern, Jr.