1889

On February 24 at the Commodore Hotel in New York City the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry at its annual meeting awarded to Hardy Smith Ferguson world renowned consulting engineer, its highest reward for achievement—the Gold Medal. Such was an announcement in an article, reviewing our classmate's notable career, in the March issue of Pulp Paper, the Production and Management Journal published in New York City, covering North America's Wood Pulp, Paper, Paperboard and Cellulose Industries.

Former medal awards have been made to a small group of distinguished men for one or more technical developments in the manufacture of pulp or paper. The Gold Medal this year, presented in recognition of outstanding contributions to the technical development of the entire industry, is received by a man whose whole lifetime has been one of noteworthy achievement and whose history is, in itself, a record of the important role the consulting engineer plays in the progress of the industry.

The senior partner of Hardy S. Ferguson and Company, Consulting Engineers, entered the industry 57 years ago. Since then technical methods and processes in the manufacture of pulp and paper have been refined and developed to a status governed by scientific methods and practices unknown a half century ago. Hardy Ferguson, dean of his profession in his chosen field, was born in Chelsea, Mass., November 3, 1868. He prepared for college at the high school in Newmarket, N. H„ and graduated from Dartmouth, with B.S. decree, in 1889. He received his C.E. degree from the Thayer School of Civil Engineering at Dartmouth in 1891. That year he became assistant engineer with D.H. and A.B. Tower, Holyoke, Mass., and was appointed resident engineer supervising construction of the newsprint paper mill of the Glens Falls Paper Company then being built at Glens Falls, N. Y. Following this assignment, he became resident engineer of the newsprint paper mills of the Rumford Falls Paper Company and of a sulphite pulp mill of the Rumford Falls Sulphite Company built at Rumford, Me., during years 1892-1894. He remained six years with the Touer organization, at that time the only true pulp and paper engineering organization in existence, and then began a private practice, specializing in the design of pulp and paper mills. His first job was to design and supervise construction of the newsprint mill of the Great Northern Paper Company at Millinocket, Me. This mill was really the beginning of the big newsprint paper mills of today, and was probably the first paper mill to be generally operated with electric motors. He remained with the Great Northern Paper Company as chief engineer until 1911, when he went to New York and opened offices at 200 Fifth Avenue, where he may be found today when he is not away traveling in the interests of clients who include some of the greatest pulp, paper, and hydro-electric companies in the world.

There are Hardy Ferguson mills in most parts of the North American continent where industrial mills are built—in Canada (the Jonquiere Pulp Company in Quebec); in the Far West (Soundview at Everett, St. Regis pulp mill at Tacoma); in the South (Crossett in Arkansas, Hollingsworth and Whitney in Alabama, Florida Pulp and Paper in Florida); also in the Mid-west, and in New England, where the industry and Hardy Ferguson began.

Ten years after the Russian Revolution he was employed to make general plans of a newsprint paper mill to be built near the city of Gorki in the U.S.S.R. In 1929, at the request of Soviet officials, he visited the U.S.S.R. for consultation regarding a sulphite mill at Archangel. He again visited the U.S.S.R. in 1930 for consultation about the design of a paper and pulp mill to be built on the Kama river. While on this latter trip, he visited the newsprint mill near Gorki, for the construction of which he had prepared the general plans in 1927. He found the Soviet engineers competent, but with little experience in the pulp and paper industry,—and they were fearful of consequences should they make errors in engineering judgment.

In addition to the long list of industrial plants and of hydraulic power developments with which the name Ferguson has been connected there is an equally long list of men who have been trained in his office to take their rightful places in the pulp and paper industry, not only as engineers, but also in the production and management fields. One of his finest qualities is his willingness to help the other fellow—oftentimes without the other fellow's knowledge.

Many a manufacturer of equipment and many a contractor for construction work can thank him for advice and help in new developments and in improvements in processes tor which he has neither claimed nor wanted recognition or credit. Instead, all such things nave ben passed along anonymously to the industry in which he has long played a leading

Secretary and, Treasurer, 108 Mt. Vernon St., Boston 8, Mass.

Class Agent, 12 Clinton Ave., Dobbs Ferry, N. Y