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This is Page 4 and 5 of an eight page article. Used for historical and educational use only.
Better Bow. James Howard Kindelberger is the kind of man who thinks there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved. A man with a quick smile and a quicker wit that has made him famous as a teller of ribald stories, he is also a dedicated tinkerer. He once took up surf-boating, gave it up when the boat he designed came apart on its first test and he almost drowned. He also took up archery--not for the sport, but because he "wanted to redesign the bow." He is usually affable--but woe betide the man who gets in Dutch with Dutch. He once gave vent to his terrible temper on the golf course by breaking all his clubs, one by one. Last year, at England's Farnborough Air Show, Kindelberger was asked how he liked it. Said Dutch: "It's okay, but we're putting on a better air show every day--in Korea."
Stomach v. Head. Up at 8 each morning, Kindelberger takes "exactly 15 minutes" to shave, wash and dress (usually in a blue suit). He breakfasts on "orange juice, toast, coffee and the Los Angeles Times," drives himself to work at 9 or 9:30. He runs North American like a wing commander. Says North American's President John L. (for Leland) Atwood: "All my executive authority stems from Mr. Kindelberger."
Into Kindelberger's big paneled office each day troop platoons of admirals, generals, engineers, salesmen, designers; out from it, over the scream of North American jets flying near by, go unnumbered phone calls to Washington and North American's, four plants at Los Angeles, Downey and Fresno, Calif., and Columbus, Ohio. Says Dutch: "My day is nothing but trouble, because the things that are running smoothly don't need my attention."
At lunchtime, Kindelberger joins his department heads in a small dining room to mull over the latest company problems. Then he falls into a contour chair for a 15-minute nap. Says Dutch, who had a serious ulcer operation years ago: "I've decided that at my age, it's wise to be as smart as a pig. There's no point having your head and your stomach fighting over your blood supply. By taking a nap, I let my stomach have the blood for a while."
Kindelberger is such a foe of waste that the story is told of a new employee whom he found cutting scraps of metal into tiny shavings. When Kindelberger asked what he was doing, the employee said: "I don't know. The foreman just told me to chop up this stuff before the Old Man comes around and tries to make a plane out of it."
Ice Mike. In the evening, when Kindelberger heads his Lincoln into the driveway of his Los Angeles home, an ultrasonic whistle on the car alerts an electronic ear, and the garage doors of his eight-room house, which he designed himself, go up automatically. He pours himself a Scotch at a leather-covered bar he built in the living room; if ice is needed, he speaks into a pilot's microphone behind the bar connected to the kitchen. Built-in cabinets hide a living-room slot machine and shelves for his ten cameras and photographic gear.
Most evenings, Dutch heads into the kitchen, where he prides himself on his cooking, on his battery of ovens, and on his magnetized potholders which he can "hang" on the refrigerator or other metal objects. Kindelberger and his wife do most of the cooking; they have a couple who help with the dishes and cleaning. Often, Dutch's daughter Joan and her husband, Ford Dealer Ralph Graham, drop in with their three children (Kindelberger refers to them fondly as "the Vulture Family").
Parties are a Kindelberger specialty; last week he cooked up a dinner for 60 (chicken in wine, rice, salad, and bread "with just a touch of garlic"). But Dutch always tries to get to bed early; loves to lie there reading magazines and listening to his bedside radio, which has a special attachment to plug into his good ear.
Saved from the Trenches. Born in Wheeling, W.Va., where his father was a steel molder and his mother pieced out the family income papering walls at 50¢ an hour, Dutch quit high school after one year, went to work (at $5 a week) for National Tube Co., "throwing pig iron around from 7 in the morning to 5:30 at night." Later, as a civilian draftsman for the Army Engineers, he found time to take International Correspondence School courses at night, crammed in enough drafting, engineering and math to pass the entrance exams to Carnegie Tech. Dutch worked his way through a year of college (and into the presidency of the freshman class) before he decided he was wasting his time.
In 1917 he enlisted in the Signal Corps, whose few planes were the forerunners of the Air Corps. Says he: "I just didn't want to end up in a trench." Flying came hard to Private Kindelberger; landings came harder. He once smashed up a plane, then brashly stepped from the wreckage and blamed it all on defective materials.
Systematic Drinking. At war's end, Kindelberger answered an ad of Glenn L. Martin Co., landed a job as draftsman at $27.50 a week. For months, he worked in his old uniforms because he could not afford to buy civilian clothing, augmented his salary by teaching aviation classes , at night, developing photos in a bathroom and writing for Popular Mechanics (at $3 to $5 an article). Raised to $32 a week in 1919, he married his childhood sweetheart, Thelma Knarr. (She divorced him in 1945, and Kindelberger is now married to Helen Allen, a onetime model.)
As assistant chief engineer, Kindelberger worked on the first of Martin's famed bombers. When Martin's chief engineer, Donald Douglas, quit to start a company of his own, he asked Dutch to come along to California as engineering boss. Kindelberger accepted--but did not arrive till five years later ("Had to save up the fare, you know"). Under Boss Engineer Kindelberger, Douglas produced the DC-1 and DC-2, laid plans for the famed DC-3. About that time, Kindelberger, up until then a teetotaler, decided to investigate drinking. With his customary zeal, he drew up a list of every drink known, systematically made and sampled each. Says he: "In my life I have made and drunk every conceivable drink, even some you had to chew. But in my old age I've learned one thing: there's nothing that beats a good Scotch on ice, with just a drop of water."
Used for historical and educational use only.
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