Walter F. Grote, Sr.
Grote Manufacturing Company
Inducted 1988
Walter Grote (1901 – 1993) graduated from Fordham University in 1923 and had his first professional position at an oxygen production facility in Portsmouth, Ohio. Soon after, he joined his father’s manufacturing company, National Colortype Corporation, as a plastics process engineer. He experimented extensively with an early Buckholz injection molding machine (imported from Germany in 1922 by his father, William).
Grote began developing and manufacturing plastics products using this new plastics manufacturing process. Under his management and direction, the newly formed Grote Manufacturing Company was credited with major developments in early automated hydraulic injection molding machines. His initiatives in product development and marketing were significant factors in the growth of the plastics industry during the 1930s, when he was one of the first to perceive the importance of larger and safer plastic reflectors for automotive applications.
Until World War II, the Grote Manufacturing Company remained the nation’s pioneer and most fully integrated producer of plastic lenses and reflectors, with full optical engineering and testing capabilities and “precision” injection molding. During World War II, his company quickly converted to the production of shell and bomb casings and paravians for mine-sweepers, winning the coveted “E” Award for Excellence.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Grote continued to pioneer many other optical and electrical plastics technologies, including flexible extruded reflective sheeting, the first non-metallic lamp housings, “turtle-back” clearance lamps, and no-splice wiring systems.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastics processing