90 Full Years to Look Back On
To mark his 90th birthday on January 15, Frank B. Sanborn '87 was both author and recipient of a 48-page brochure put out by his company, entitled Speaking ofthe Founder of Sanborn Company. It is a fitting commentary on one who has enjoyed working for everything received, and an outstanding record of a man who, by adhering to a courageous and balanced concept of life, succeeded in whatever enterprise he undertook — be it teaching, fire-prevention in industry, or the launching of a manufacturing company at an age when many men start to contemplate their retirement. Makers of instruments for use in medicine and industry, the Sanborn Company now enjoys world renown.
The brochure is an attractive write-up designed primarily for the employees of Sanborn Company, who, since its beginnings, have been profit sharers and operators of the firm. In Dr. Sanborn's modest and vivid words, he describes his early life on a New Hampshire farm: his Dartmouth days and postgraduate work at Thayer School, from which he was graduated in 1889. For nine years he worked as Fire Protection Engineer, with time out to obtain the M.S. degree at Harvard. The following nineteen years, he taught civil engineering at Tufts College. By second nature an innovator, Dr. Sanborn at Tufts succeeded in radically changing teaching techniques, by having practical demonstrations in science courses precede the theoretical presentations, in order to arouse student interest at the outset.
When he was 52 years old, he founded Sanborn Company, of which he was president until 1942. In that year he was made chairman of the board, and Dartmouth awarded him the honorary Doctor of Science degree. No small part of Dr. Sanborn's attainments have been the technical books written to clarify for the medical profession the use of basal metabolism instruments and others. He describes the manufacture of a portable electrocardiograph as the boldest step in his business career. In addition to work, he has enjoyed exercise, tennis and bowling, and has won awards in several golf tournaments.
He still plays some golf and he still works, although, as Dr. Sanborn writes in his brochure, he keeps "easy hours-from 9:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.," with a month's vacation in the winter and one in the summer.
