Ferdinand John Conrad Dresser Dressendorfer

FERDINAND JOHN CONRAD DRESSER is a civil and construction engineer whose experience has covered many states in the building of railroads and industrial plants. He is now senior member of the Dresser Minton Company, general engineers and contractors, with offices in the Arcade at Qeveland. Mr. Dresser is a man of unusual attainments in his profession, and has made his career the basis of his individual efforts. He was born at Arcadia, Wisconsin, December 21, 1883, son of John and Anna (Kirschner) Dresser. His father, a native of Wisconsin, died leaving his widow with three small children. She was the daughter of a Lutheran minister. She was born in Germany, and was a child when her father came to this country and located in Wisconsin. Left a widow, she faced courageously the task of providing for and rearing and educating her children, and they have always been deeply grateful for the sacrifices she accepted and the work she did in giving them a start in life. Ferdinand John Conrad Dresser as a boy attended the public schools in his native Village of Arcadia. Subsequently he took a course in engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Leaving the university in 1904, he joined an engineering party as rodman for the Girard Construction Company. This company was then engaged in railroad work in Illinois. He was soon advanced from rodman to assistant engineer on location and construction for the Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary Railway, and continued in that post until 1908. During 1908-09 he was superintendent of designing and construction of a large brick manufacturing plant for the Blair Clay Company. From 1909 to 1914 Mr. Dresser was in the service of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company as assistant engineer on location in Dakota and Iowa, in new line construction in Wisconsin, in the building of a new terminal at Milwaukee and Clinton, Iowa, and bridge, dock and reinforced concrete elevator work. On leaving the Chicago and Northwestern he was for a time superintendent of bridges for JohnS Mausch, a contractor in railroad construction in Massachusetts, and during 1915-16 was superintendent of reinforced concrete buildings for the Turner Construction Company of New York City. From 1916 to 1921 Mr. Dresser was assistant general superintendent and later district manager in general charge of the Cleveland district for the Austin Company, having charge of all the railroad work for that company, including the terminals at Logansport and Richmond, Indiana, and at Crestline and Columbus, Ohio. During the World war period Mr. Dresser had personal supervision in general charge of the handling of over fifty contracts concerning the ereclion of a number of buildings in record time, such as the New York Air Brake Plant erected in fifty days, the Dayton Wright Areoplane Plant, built in thirty days, the Nordyke Marmon Plant, also in thirty days, and a structure of the National Cash Register, built in thirty days. Mr. Dresser on August 1, 1921, organized the Dresser Minton Company, engineers and contractors. The company has offices both in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Since January 1, 1919, Mr. Dresser has been representalive of the association of general contractors of America and the National Board of Jurisdictional Awards, a position bringing him into personal contact with all the large general contractors and engineers of the country. He is also president of the Cleveland Chapter of that association and of the Western Society of Engineers. Mr. Dresser is a member of the Cleveland Athletic Club and the Masonic order. He married in New York City Miss Helen Wallian. From: A History of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland By: William R. Coates Publishers: The American Historical Society Chicago and New York, 1924