An industrial engineer is somebody who determines
the most effective way of production for a company by evaluating its
integrated systems of people, knowledge, equipment, energy and
material.
Such a person must possess the ability to
apply principles and methods of engineering, science and math in order
to eliminate wasted time, money and other resources for a company.
So, basically, an industrial engineer is a
person who locates and seizes opportunities that others cannot
recognize. In other words, an industrial engineer is Max Rechnitz,
founder of Methods For Management, Inc.
Max first recognized such an opportunity in
1953 when he started his firm in a time when most people didn’t
even know industrial engineering existed. Naturally, finding work
originally proved to be somewhat difficult.
“Methods For Management went wherever
we could find a job,” Max recalled. “It didn’t matter
what industry at that point. I didn’t have a reputation at
all.”
In the beginning, he simply looked for
clients one at a time.
“I just happened to talk to somebody
who ran a business and I would do some work for him,” he said.
Once he got hired for a job, however,
word-of-mouth advertising helped him gather more and more clients.
Though he didn’t get rich, he did manage to keep the company
running along for a while.
His fortunes changed considerably when he
expanded into the laundry and drycleaning industry about a decade after
he had launched Methods For Management.
“I was part-time teaching industrial
engineering courses at the University of Colorado,” Max
explained. “One man took that course and he was a manager in a
local laundry cleaning plant [Laundry Elite} and he was so excited
about what I told him that he asked me to come in and see if I could
help him.”
The laundry and drycleaning industry kept Max
busy with work after that, although he still had to convince people
that they needed his services.
“When I got into that first plant, it
was a time when nobody even knew what industrial engineering was and
the cleaning industry had never had an outsider coming in to improve
operations,” Max said. “So, I had a wide open field
really.”
One opportunity that Max recognized —
and seized — was starting up management bureaus for cleaners.
“That idea started in
California,” Max recalled. “The secretary of one of the
California associations had started the first bureau by that time. When
he passed away, word got around and I decided I’m going to try
that. I started my first bureau. It covered North Dakota, South Dakota,
Montana and so forth.”
It wasn’t long before Max brought
even more cleaners together. He started three other bureaus which
covered Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and
Nebraska.
“It started out as comparing
financial data,” Max said. “Then, we would get into a
lot of industrial engineering at each of the plants.”
Long before Max engineered his dream of owning
his own company, he was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1919. According to
Max, the mountains in Austria were absolutely breathtaking to behold.
“I was a skier from the beginning,
from age six,” he said.
Such peaceful surroundings soon turned
hostile, however, when the Rechnitz clan — and other Jewish
families — fled the country in the late 1930s when German troops
invaded the country.
Max was only 17 at the time, so he
continued his high school education after his family settled in Denver.
“My brother was over here
already,” he said. “He came a little earlier. He got
married and moved to Denver. With all of the mountains, that was the
place to go.”
Fortunately for Max, he had studied English
in Vienna, so he could overcome some of the language barrier. It
didn’t make it any easier to find work, however. He struggled a
while before he found a job as a cowboy in 1939.
“I worked on a farm,” he said.
“I did whatever needed to be done because they had all kinds of
animals. You have to feed them. You have to take care of them. It was
hard work, but that was all right.”
Next up for Max was a stint with the National
Guard. He trained in Tennessee until December of 1941. At that point,
he transferred into the Army and had more training in California.
“Then, they shipped us overseas. I
was one of MacArthur’s men over in the Pacific,” Max said.
“I served from 1941 to 1945. I spent time in a jungle in New
Guinea, went up to the Phillippines. It was quite a trip, quite an
experience.”
After serving four-and-a-half years in
World War II, Max was ready to go back home. While overseas, he had
accrued some education credits for the University of Wisconsin, so he
moved on to Madison and spent the next few years earning a
Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. While on a school
break in New York City, he met Irene in 1947. They got married about a
year later.
The couple moved to Denver in 1948 where
Max went to work for the Gates Rubber Company for a year. At that
point, Max decided to attend the University of Southern California and
earn a degree in industrial engineering. However, Max felt his
education still wasn’t well-rounded enough.
“I came back to Denver and took some
courses in cost accounting at Denver University. It was something that
lacked in the industrial engineering courses.”
He also began working for Gates again, but
soon his frustrations there got the better of him. One day, he came
home and informed Irene that he was on his last paycheck with the
company. He had quit with no plans for the future and two young
children to take care of at home: Gary and Deborah.
It wasn’t long before Max was back on his
feet. This time, however, he did not have to answer to an employer.
This time, he could live out his own dream, facing different challenges
on his own terms with Methods For Management. Many experiences over the
years stand out in his mind, like his trip to a European convention in
Olympia back in 1966.
“I think I might have been the only
American there,” he recalled. “It was long before our
industry really went to Europe. I saw equipment there that I had never
seen anyplace else. Because of that, we went to other places in Europe
that had some of this modern equipment installed... Paris, Brussles and
Ipswich. The Europeans were really ahead of us.”
Bringing back such untapped knowledge to
the states was a big boost for business as cleaners loved to hear about
profitable new options.
Of course, cleaners did not necessarily
like all of Max’s ideas. He recalls that he wasn’t fondly
received in the 1970s when he predicted very early that perc would have
its share of hampering regulation problems.
At the time, he had participated in the
formulation of the State Clean Air Act and was a technical expert on
perc cleaning equipment in the state of Colorado.
“I could see that it would have to be
replaced and people would become more and more opposed to it, for
whatever reason,” he said. “I got myself into a lot of
trouble over that. It’s a good cleaner, no doubt about it, but
it’s put quite a few cleaners out of business.”
Other committees that Max has volunteered his
time on over the years include: the Stationary Source Air Pollution
Regulations Advisory Committee, the Pollution Prevention Advisory
Board, and the Tri-County Health Department, Air Pollution Control
Division, among several others.
Many might also recognize Max from his
countless speaking engagements for industry associations over the
years.
While Max was always happy to give back to
his community and the cleaning industry, he believes he was happiest
when he was designing plants. He is a Registered Professional Engineer
in the state of Colorado.
“I think the biggest enjoyment is
when you design a new plant and can see it getting started,” he
said. “It’s also good to see that what you did
works.”
One plant in Knoxville, Tennessee, that Max
helped plan from scratch won a plant design award a few years ago from
American Drycleaner.
About 25 years ago, Max’s daughter,
Deborah, began working at Methods For Management and the two have
worked together ever since.
These days, she heads the company while Max
steps in only when he is needed.
“After all of these years, I’ve
slowed down a bit,” he confessed. “Occasionally, somebody
calls for help or it’s an old client that needs something done
and I go in there.”
The third generation of the Rechnitz family
has become involved in Methods For Management, as well. Max’s
grandson Scott Ellis, has worked as the web site’s assistant web
master and was an escort at the IDC Convention in London during 2002.
Now, only one thing makes Max happier than
seeing his company live on in the family: heading to the mountains and
skiing, even at the age of 86.
“I’ve been a lifelong skier and
I’ve stayed out of trouble,” he said. “In the
wintertime, I’m there every week.”
