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MEET MR. 3mpoA&il)ie
It can be done unless and he's never
HARRY PUREL, purchasing agent for Trans World Airlines, was having a bad time of it trying to locate a certain obscure part for which company engineers were clamoring. TWA shops couldn't produce the Item, and no fabricator would touch the job.
"It just can't be done," Harry sighed. "It's impossible. So — I guess it's another (ine for Blick." And he picked up the telephone.
Three mniutes later he dropped the receiver back in its cradle and reached for a cigarette. "Thank God! BHck says he'll have it ready by eight o'clock. Plenty of time."
And that's an introduction to Herb Blickhan, an unorthodox character who has knocked the "no" out of nocan-do, and has built a worldwide reputation for himself in the knocking. Blick is one of the biggest fabricators of aircraft component parts in America, and is tar-and-away the most versatile. He specializes in the hard-to-do; anything that's impossible is right up his runway.
The War Production Board called the Blick Manufacturing Company "the most diversified shop west of Chicago." Certainly their ability and performance are recognized by nearly every airline in the United States and abroad, because orders are on hand from all of them.
It was complete conversion to war<> production, incidentally, that paved
Blick says it can't — yet said that!
the way to Blick's postwar success. For years prior to the attack upon Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Blick Company had been steadily advancing to the top in the manufacture of gift and art objects and novelties. They were the nation's third largest manufacturer of these items, and had established a reputation for handling tricky fabrication and assemblage problems. When war came, it was apparent that much of this knowledge and skill was readily trans latable for application to the more difficult phases of aircraft manufacture. Accordingly, they were called upon by North American Aviation's modi fication center to rework tools, dies, and many components of North American Aircraft.
The union of Herb Blickhan's trouble-shooting outfit and the avia tion industry was a huge and immediate success. Planes earmarked for service in Russia would suddenly be needed on some Pacific fighter strip in the Torrid Zone, and the climate differential necessitated hurry-up modifications of design. Call Blick The boys were waiting and the goods had to be delivered. Herb Blickhan never missed a delivery.
So, for over two years, Blick de voted 90 percent of his facilities to pulling North American out of tight cracks. At the same time he was building ramp equipment for the Navy. "Ramp equipment" is a trade phrase used to describe a multitude of