Ronald Lorin Daggett

Son of Gordon Floyd Daggett and Doris Nellie Damon A Madison native, Professor Ronald L. Daggett graduated from the UW-Madison in mechanical engineering with a BS in 1938 and an MS in 1939. After motorcycling from Madison to the West Coast with a friend, Daggett went to work in plastics manufacturing at RCA in Camden, NJ, later moving to Blessing Associates in New York City. He returned to the Midwest after the war in 1945 as a design engineer for Ideal Industries in Sycamore, IL. In 1946, he returned to the UW-Madison as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. What made this appointment so significant is that, in addition to his regular teaching duties, he started offering an elective course titled "Plastics and Plastic Processes." He did not know at the time that this was the first engineering plastics course taught in the world, and that he was alone in his quest for plastics engineering education. He did not have a textbook, notes or a mentor. This course has been offered every semester for the past six decades. In 1990 the course was split into two courses: plastics design and plastics processes. Today, they are the most popular electives for mechanical engineering undergraduate and graduate students. Meanwhile, the Polymer Engineering Center, featuring one of the nation's strongest research groups, and membership in the Center for Applied Polymer and Composites Engineering, a multi-University Industry/University Cooperative Research Center which aims at bridging faculty research with business and industry needs, stands as a testament to Daggett's pioneering foresight. As the years passed, Professor Daggett not only taught, but became a researcher. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, with Dr. Vincent L. Gott of the UW Medical School he co-developed an innovative prosthetic heart valve. This patented valve was used in several hundred heart patients over a four-year period. After this he did extensive work on developing an insulin pump for diabetics and an artificial bladder with a visiting medical student from Denmark. In 1961 Daggett founded Engineering Industries in the basement of an abandoned auto repair shop in nearby Fitchburg. There he engineered and developed injection molding techniques for small precision plastic parts, the first being hearing aid battery liners for Ray-O-Vac. From the beginning, the company carried his engineering philosophy of solving the problems that no-one else wanted to tackle and taking them on to a solution in the form of a finished product. The Professor himself spent countless hours in a small machine shop in the basement of his home, machining the most intricate molds and features for parts that everyone else had deemed impossible to make. His basement became legendary as a place where former students and young entrepreneurs built prototypes, molds and parts that went on to become the seeds for some of the more successful companies in the State of Wisconsin. Presently over 40 years old, Engineering Industries now located in Verona (WI), continues to offer consulting and design assistance, and still opens its facilities to students for visits, projects, and occasional class work. The company is an employer of many UW-Madison mechanical engineering graduates. It has donated equipment to the University for educational use. Engineering Industries has grown to be a leader in helping customers with innovative molding techniques and now employs about 100 people who serve more than 75 customers in several states. Daggett retired from the University in 1975, after 29 years. In 1991 he received a Distinguished Service Citation from the University. Daggett and his wife in 1948, Dorothy, were among the founding members of what is now Bethany United Methodist Church. In the early 1950s Daggett built his Madison home and most of its furniture. He proudly announced that he was the first on his block with 440v power to his house. He was happiest, engaged in metalworking, woodworking, ceramics, and design and repair projects in his basement work areas. When asked if he could make or repair something he would always say, "You bet!" And then he would plunge into the project. Some of these projects are local legends. He built a dishwasher in the house. For Bethany he built their first organ. He would say, "I can repair anything but broken hearts and the crack of dawn." In 1964 Daggett was introduced to sketching. Over forty years he developed into a skilled watercolorist, drawing and painting only "on location." He has completed an estimated 600 drawings. Along the way he developed portable painting desks. His Proportioner is sold as a painting aid. He rarely sold his work, but has given away approximately 150 pieces of work to family and friends. The work includes montages of UW-Madison buildings, windows, cupolas, steeples, and signs that document a history of Madison and environs. Additional paintings of waterfronts and fishing tugs record a vanishing history of Kewaunee, Algoma, Gloucester (MA) and the Seattle (WA) Fisherman's Terminal. In his spare time he recorded Madison flora evidenced in thousands of photographs; filled multiple notebooks with his calligraphy work, much of it documenting the haikus of Dorothy, his wife, who passed on four years ago. To keep in shape he became a skilled figure skater and then took up squash, playing the game into his 70's. He loved music and played the violin in a community orchestra. For relaxation he was a voracious reader. And for a change of pace, friends recall his installation of a hog shed behind his factory for a blacksmith shop, where he could be found pounding away in the heatless environment in the dead of winter. Marrying Dorothy Reid after they graduated from UW-Madison, they raised two children. Karen Wertymer (John) is a social worker in Evanston, IL. Lorin (Anna Bakke), who suffered an untimely death seven years ago, was a highly respected psychiatrist in Seattle, WA. Ron is survived by four grandchildren: Jennifer Wilson (Doug) of Deerfield, IL; Megan Wertymer (John Fleck) of Chicago, IL; Kirsten Wertymer of Evanston, IL; and Jessica Daggett of Seattle, WA. Ron is also survived by four great grandchildren: Madison, Eleanor, & Reid Wilson of Deerfield, IL; and, Henry Fleck of Chicago, IL. A Memorial service will be held at Bethany United Methodist Church, 3910 Mineral Point Road, Madison, WI 53705 on Saturday, November 20, 2004, at 1:00PM. Donations may be made to the Ron and Dorothy Daggett Endowment Fund c/o the Madison Community Foundation, P.O. Box 5010, 2 Science Court, Madison, WI 53705-0010, or to the Ronald L. Daggett Memorial Scholarship Fund c/o the University of Wisconsin Foundation, P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708. The family is compiling an inventory of Ron's paintings, many of which have been given away. A photograph and a description, including the title and date, and the name and address of the owner may be sent to his daughter, Karen Wertymer, at [email protected] or 806 Ingleside Place, Evanston, IL 60201.