The collective community of Michigan’s Great Southwest has lost a major industrial leader, and a generous, philanthropic man.
We’ve learned that Robert J. Warren, the President Emeritus of LECO Corporation, has died at the age of 88. Warren helped build LECO — a pioneer in the development of carbon determination instrumentation for use in the iron and steel industry, and other types of analytic instrumentation for use in organic and metallographic analysis and separation science — into a scientific juggernaut. Thanks to his leadership, industries around the world have trusted LECO to deliver technologically advanced products and solutions for analytical science for more than 86 years.
The LECO team worldwide was notified Sunday morning of Warren’s passing by his wife, Elizabeth. Here is her message:
Dear LECO family,
It is with deep sadness that I share with you that my husband and our former President, Robert J. Warren passed away peacefully yesterday surrounded by family and friends.
Bob’s integrity, vision, and leadership were key components to our company’s growth and success for nearly 50 years. The diversification of our product base beyond the steel and metals industries as well as the expansion of our global footprint were some of his most notable accomplishments.
Bob will be remembered by many for being bold and direct. He was never afraid to tell you exactly how he felt! His quirky personality built a storied reputation amongst colleagues, employees, and members of the community, but beyond that tough exterior was a man with a very caring heart.
Bob gave so much of himself to his company and his community, and rarely accepted acknowledgement or recognition from anyone. He preferred to stay “behind the scenes”, keeping a watchful eye from the background, often leaving only a cigar behind as evidence of his presence.
Aside from all of his professional accomplishments, it is his family Bob was most proud of, which includes our four sons, their wives, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. He will be missed by all who knew him.
Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers at this difficult time. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Sincerely, Elizabeth S. Warren
A scientific journal, Select Science, summed up Warren’s career nicely in 2017 saying, “His integrity, vision, and leadership have been key components to the company’s success for the last 40 years. A driving force behind the diversification of products within the company, it was Warren’s leadership that moved LECO beyond its trademark carbon determination business and expanded into areas of analysis for the organic, metallographic, and separation science industries.”
It was in that year, 2017, that he was honored with the Pittcon Heritage Award for his contribution to scientific instrumentation. The Heritage Award has been given since 2002, presented jointly by Pittcon and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and is meant to “honor visionaries whose entrepreneurial careers shaped the instrumentation and laboratory supplies community, and by doing so have transformed the scientific community at large.”
In 1968, Warren joined the family-owned Laboratory Equipment Corporation (LECO) which was founded in 1936 by Carl E. Schultz and business partners including George Krasl and Joseph Sauer. Carl Schultz’s sister was Olga Krasl, George Krasl’s wife, and Bob Warren’s wife Elizabeth was Carl Schultz’s daughter.
LECO has long been recognized as a leader in materials analysis. The company’s first product was a carbon analyzer, a rapid carbon determinator designed to analyze the amount of carbon in steel or iron automatically within minutes. They expanded into die casting, ceramics, glass blowing, plating, and electronics. The company developed a wide range of products for laboratory analysis, including induction furnaces for the analysis of carbon and sulphur, metallurgical apparatus for rapid field analysis, and zircon porcelain and glassware for laboratory use.
In 1967, LECO opened its first international office in Germany, and Warren was instrumental in the company’s ongoing expansion into Europe and Asia. In 1971, the company received an “E” Award for Exports from President Richard Nixon (authorized on his behalf by Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans.) The company reported an increase in overseas sales from 17- to 50-percent of its production, over the previous five years. LECO had expanded its production facilities as a result of the demand. As executive vice president and general manager of the firm, Robert Warren was chosen to receive the “E” Award on behalf of the company, which attributed its success in part to the establishment of high customer service standards, including careful handling of equipment, selection and training of distributors, and support for staff and customers in their local languages.
In 1976, Warren was named President and General Manager of LECO, and his wife Elizabeth became vice-president. By 1977, LECO had established international subsidiaries in Brazil, Canada, England, France, West Germany, Sweden and South Africa, in addition to its headquarter offices in St. Joseph and manufacturing plants in the United States. The company also has facilities in Henderson, Nevada, and Fort Meyers, Florida, and more than 30 subsidiaries worldwide, plus additional international distributors. On June 8, 1977, the Warrens bought the company’s outstanding stock from the George J. Krasl Trust, represented by his widow Olga S. Krasl.
Under Warren’s direction, LECO’s research and development expanded, from manufacturing analytical instruments for metals and inorganics, to add manufacturing analytical instruments for organics. Analysis of organics brought LECO into the coal, oil, agricultural, and food industries. Warren also encouraged the incorporation of computing and data management capabilities into LECO’s instruments. By the 1980s, LECO was developing multi-element analytical instruments for inductively coupled plasma, glow discharge, atomic emission spectroscopy, and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In 1997, LECO introduced a 500-spectra-per-second time-of-flight mass spectrometer, suitable for use in separation science. LECO also developed instruments for comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography.
In 2006, the company opened the doors to their Global Support Center in St. Joseph — a facility dedicated to providing customers with service, training, and additional support after the sale of their instrument. A global network of service professionals help ensure customers around the world receive the service they need.
Metallographic and analytical laboratories at LECO’s new Customer Experience Center on Hilltop
Road and their mass spectrometry lab at the Elizabeth S. Warren Technical Centre, opened in 2012, provide application assistance, instrument demonstrations, and technical presentations for new and current customers, while their optical service laboratory offers accredited calibrations for hardness testing and microscopy equipment.
Bob Warren retired as President of LECO in 2016. The following year, 2017, LECO announced construction of a new building on the St. Joseph campus to be named in his honor.
In 2004, the Warrens and others arranged for the sale of LECO land in the Silver Beach area, to be transferred to Berrien County and the city of St. Joseph for educational and recreational use. The Warrens greatly supported the Silver Beach Carousel Society, which built a new carousel in that area, to replace one previously located in the Silver Beach Amusement Park. They were also instrumental in the creation and growth of one of the longest-running and most popular annual community events, the Venetian Festival.
In his retirement role as President Emeritus, Warren was an advisor to LECO’s Co-Presidents Carl Warren and Chris Warren as they continue to shepherd the firm through its third generation of family ownership.
I was always personally, intrigued by Bob Warren, and a number of years ago wrote a column about him for the publication Sunset Coast Magazine. Family members were fond of that column, and I have included it here to share a little insight from those many years ago. The column was headlined: “PSSSST…Want the Inside Story on Bob Warren?…” Here is that column as published:
It’s springtime and the Florida coast is jammed with frenzied spring breakers patrolling for the ultimate party.
Springtime and the Sunset Coast slowly emerges from a mid-winter’s sleep. The sandman rubs the snow from his eyes as memories of summer roll in on each little whitecap.
Spring…and you can almost picture Bob Warren on a solitary visit to Silver Beach. Close your eyes real tight, point your nose toward City Hall, and you can almost smell the hot dogs roasting over a heated debate.
I don’t actually know if Bob Warren travels to Silver Beach any more. I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see the place again as long as he lives. In fact, I am a bit mystified why Bob Warren even wants to call St. Joseph his home, with the outrageous reception he gets from the public at large. Maybe it just comes with the turf. The “turf” in this case is a multi-million dollar enterprise that is now the single largest tax-paying entity in the city of St. Joseph. LECO Corporation and its various and sundry spin-offs, such as Pier 33 of St. Joseph and Grand Rapids, put bread on the table for some 800 families in our immediate area, and another 400 in other parts of the country.
Except for several small, specialized departments, LECO has a track record of virtually no layoffs in the past 15 to 20 years. While nothing is ever guaranteed, LECO employees have been virtually grinding it out in rock-solid jobs that have even resulted in substantial overtime for the past 10 years.
At a glance, you’d expect Bob Warren to be of the super heroes of the community. Instead, he gets a wildly churning rumor mill second only to “The Donald.” Make no mistake…Bob Warren is a wealthy man by most people’s standards. No argument, either, that he tends to keep generally to himself, through certainly not a recluse, and has a few eccentric quirks. So do I. So do you. If the rumors were true, however, Mr. Warren and Company would now be the proud owners of half the real estate in southwestern Michigan! At various stages in the past year Bob Warren was in the process of buying, or already had brought (according to the rumor mongers, mind you) the once and former Lakeshore Motors, the Boulevard Hotel (several times over!), the St. Joe Holiday Inn, the Whitcomb Towers, the original Peoples State Bank Building in downtown St. Joe, Pier 1000 Marina, Eagle Pointe, Ideal Plumbing, and heaven knows what else! It got to the point were Bob, himself, suggested to colleagues that they start their own rumored leveraged buyout of Whirlpool Corp! After all…at about 5-percent of the size of the global giant, they were just about right for a little LBO.
Then there was the time that the self-righteous were enraged over the Venetian Festival raffle drawing that saw Mr. Warren’s name pulled out as the winner of a trip to Hawaii. Never mind the man was simply helping the cause by purchasing a thousand tickets! The loudest gripers hadn’t bought one! Oh, by the way, that year Mr. Warren’s corporate investment in the festival totaled $25,000 to $30,000! The winning ticket? It was donated to Mr. Warren’s church.
Rich-people-bashing is all the rage these days. The Trump family knows it. The late Malcolm Forbes caught hell for spending his own money on his own friends for his own birthday party. Bob Warren seems to get it wherever he goes. I don’t really know Bob Warren all that well. I have been fascinated by whatever discussions I have had with him, however brief they might have been. I haven’t always agreed with everything he’s done. There is one thing that I do know. I have a great deal of respect for Bob Warren. You don’t keep 1,200 families in new shoes by being a selfish, money-grubbing, curmudgeon as some have portrayed the man.
Maybe, as is usually the case, the chronic complainers are simply the jealous ones. They just didn’t have my mom to contend with. Her rule was a basic one: If you can’t say something nice about other people…don’t say anything at all.
Bob Warren was decidedly a force to be reckoned with…but he truly loved this community and built his legacy here to live on for decades.
Here is the official obituary for Bob Warren:
