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Ludwig Horn Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
Ink Marker; 4/1/2003; Casatelli, Linda M.
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Ludwig Horn, a veteran of the ink industry for over 50 years, was recently awarded the first Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chicago Printing Ink Production Club at its annual Winter Interlude.
Born in Philadelphia, PA in 1930, he attended the Hershey Industrial School in Hershey, PA for 12 years, including three years of vocational printing. After school, he worked in two print shops. In 1948, he returned to Hershey and asked his old printing instructor for help, because he was working 15 hours a day just to make a living. His instructor gave him two introductions: one to Bensing Brothers, the other to Bill Bond at Crescent Ink and Color. Horn liked Bond's personality and decided to try the ink business. "I fell in love with it," Horn remembers. He did color matching and customer service work. Soon, he became head color matcher.
He recalls his first service call for Crescent. All of 18 years old, he arrived riding his motorcycle. The customer was skeptical that he could help, but told him to come in and look at the problem so he could explain it to the "experts" back at the lab. The printer was having a problem with backtrapping causing black streaks on the yellow. It was a two-color press, printing yellow first down. However, when Horn looked at the press, there were black streaks in the ink fountain because the customer hadn't cleaned the press thoroughly after printing the black first on another job. The customer yelled at him, saying that Crescent sent a kid to do a man's job. However, the people back at the lab said he had done well.
Learning Chemistry
After several years, he figured that he wasn't going any further up the corporate ladder unless he learned some chemistry. So in 1953, he enrolled at St. Joseph's College, in Philadelphia for three years study in organic chemistry. Afterwards, he began making varnishes for Crescent. At the time, Crescent's supplier was Krumbhar Resins. When Krumbhaar died, Lawter bought the business. Soon after, Lawter asked Horn if he was interested in working full time for Lawter because the company liked what he did with varnishes.
However, Wendell Gifford, the sales manager at Lawter, thought that there might be repercussions from Crescent if they enticed Horn away. So Lawter ran a blank classified ad in Ink Maker for head of its varnish lab. After it ran a second month, Gifford called Horn and asked "when are you going to answer the ...ad?" So in June 1960, he took charge of the varnish lab for Lawter.
He remained in the position until two years ago, when he was replaced by Bob Cook. Now Horn devotes his time to training and writing manuals. He estimates that he has trained 78 people over the years. In 1975, he began traveling for Lawter to talk with customers about their future needs. Since he knew the printing process inside out, he did well with it. He commented that he really like world travel-visiting 31 countries-and meeting new people and learning about different cultures.
Horn said he loves the R&D and has a gift for looking at the structure of a chemical and figuring out what id can do.
He married his wife Martina in 1952. They raised a family of four boys (Martin, James Joseph, Robert) and two girls (Martina and Mary Anne). Interestingly, Horn came from a family of four boys and two girls, where he was the youngest. Martina died of breast cancer in 1989. In 1997, at the age of 67, he married a retired nurse from Taiwan named Amy whom he had met the prior year. Besides motorcycle riding, he enjoys gardening and do-it-yourself projects.
Lifetime Achievements
Horn indeed has earned the award, having compiled a list of notable achievements. He developed the first commercially successful isophthalic alkyd for ink, called Terlon for Terra and nylon. He holds the first patent for liquid aluminum compounds for heatset ink that stayed on top of the paper. Before his invention, newspapers looked dull because the ink was absorbed. That was called Termex. Another product, Halex, was the first gloss varnish designed to work with alcohol type fountain solutions. Alcohol fountain solutions were introduced in the 1950s and were becoming widespread by the 60s. Another development was 100s modified alkyd combination of gloss and pigment wetting and some set speed. It could be used for dry grinding and flush; it was called the "universal color base." Later Uroset, a urethane modified quickset vehicle, provided a jump in set speed. It might be slow by today's standards, but for its time, it was very fast.
Horn commented that he feels honored and surprised by the award. He was also the first winner of the NAPIM Technical Associated Member (TAM) Service Award. And he was honored with the Pioneer Award in 1984 by the Chicago Club. Over the years, he has spoken at 12 print clubs in Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles and at two NPIRI Conferences. He was a regular member of the Philadelphia Printing Ink Production Club for years and served as treasurer.
He has no plans to retire. He works three days a week, which gives him plenty of time at home. And he can still "play" with varnishes. "I've always enjoyed working in the lab more than anything else," he said. |
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