WRIGHT, William A., Jr.

WRIGHT, William A., Jr. (Frederick, MD, Sept. 24, 1922--Barrington, IL, Apr. 13, 2012). The son of William A. and Loretta Foland Wright, William graduated from Hamilton (Ohio) High School and began his college education at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., in 1941.

Bill volunteered for the Army Air Corps in December 1943. Commissioned a 2nd lieutenant, he completed flight training and began his first tour of combat duty in April 1944, flying B-17 flying fortress long-range bombers for the Army Air Corps 8th Air Force, 603rd Squadron, 398th Bomb Group from Plymouth, England. Two of his early missions in 1944, bombing German aircraft factories, which included 200 and 290 B17s, respectively, experienced attrition rates of more than 30 percent. Bill frequently commented that when he looked back and reflected on his WORLD WAR II service, "The odds were that we would not return home after 4-5 missions." Regardless of the odds, Bill and some of his flight crew members elected to remain after their required 25 missions were completed, took on replacement crew members and flew seven more missions, for a total of 32.

Wright was promoted to 1st lieutenant in 1944 after flying 20 bombing missions. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross; The USAAC Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters; and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three Bronze Stars. Bill then returned to the United States, and taught "basic" combat flying at the Army Air Force Pilot School at Guntar Field, Ala. He joined the Air Force Reserve upon discharge from active duty on May 26, 1945. Bill was promoted to captain while in the Air Force Reserve, serving until 1958.

After discharge from active duty, Bill began his business career in Hamilton, working nights and attending the University of Cincinnati during the day, studying engineering. In 1950, seeking a new opportunity, Bill, his wife Geneva and their two small children, Kaye, then age 6, and Andrew, then age 4, moved to Dubuque, with Bill taking a position at DUBUQUE STAMPING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

Wright resigned from Dubuque Stamping after two years, and enrolled at the UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE as a full-time student for eighteen months. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1954, 13 years after first enrolling at Bob Jones. At the same time, after meeting Vern Kascel and Bud Essman, he worked evenings and weekends designing a wooden toy for the ESKA COMPANY INC. (THE) of Dubuque.

Later in the 1950s, he became equal partners with Kascel, of Dubuque, and Luke Sapan, of Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y., in the Eska Co. Bill redesigned the flow of manufacturing work at Eska, designed the first rotary lawn mower plastic engine housing, designed and patented a mechanism that allowed the Eska Co. to introduce the first rotary lawn mower that could be started without the blade turning, and designed the first economical electric starter for snow blowers.

An avid fisherman, Wright developed an economical small outboard motor targeted at fishermen. He used an air-cooled small lawn mower engine and mounted it on an old Evinrude lower unit. After several months of engineering and testing, in the early 1960s, Bill and his partners at Eska decided to invest in the tooling to make 3.5 hp and 5 hp air-cooled small outboard motors for fishermen. The May Co., in St. Louis, was one of the first large chain stores to give it a try. A full-page ad in the St. Louis Post Dispatch advertising a 5 hp Eska Outboard motor for $99 sold more than 1,000 units in two weeks. The Eska small outboard motors became the world's largest-selling outboard motors under 10 hp. Sears Roebuck & Co. became the largest customer for Eska. In the early 1970s, creating the social event of the decade for Dubuque, Ted Williams came to honor Eska, Bill and his partners with The Sears Award of Excellence in manufacturing.

Wright and his partners sold The Eska Co. in 1970 and he began an active retirement. Wright attended the Van Der Meer Tennis Academy earning a professional instructor's certificate, which was followed by a professional ski instructor certificate. He taught tennis to many Dubuquers and downhill skiing at SUNDOWN for more than five years.

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Source:

Obituary. Telegraph Herald, April 19, 2012