FLETCHER, Leonard J.

FLETCHER, CASTELL, CURRIE, AVERY

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 15:30:31

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, January 25, 1941, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 44 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

L. J. Fletcher, Teacher, Engineer

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This is the story of a youth who made a close study of his life work, rose to be a college professor in that field,and then moved into the business world to prove that the theories and abstract principals he had learned and evolved would work in practice.

It's the story of a former Mason Cityan who took the abstract learning of the classroom and made it such a concrete success in the world of business that he has risen to a high position in a world famed corporation and has won wide recognition as an authority in his field.

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For Leonard J. Fletcher has gone a long way since that day in 1909 when he was graduated from Mason City high school and set out on the trail that was to lead him to the position of assistant general sales manager of the Caterpillar Tractor compnay and bring him widespread honor as an agricultural engineer.

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Mr. Fletcher was born in Chadron, Nebr., May 1, 1891, the son of Ansel and Etta Castell Fletcher, early midwestern pioneers. His father was a farmer and lumber dealer. The Fletchers had settled in Iowa previously and then pushed on to Nebraska. unluckily, they tried to found their new home in years of drought and after a few years of struggle they were forced to return to Iowa in 1900.

Here Leonard attended school and helped on his parents' dairy farm until he was graduated from high school in 1909. After his graduation he went to work for two years for a local hardware store. His employer, Frank Currie, found him to be an intelligent, capable and hard working youth and when in 1911 the youth left him for a college education at Iowa State [present day Iowa State University at Ames], Mr. Currie was genuinely sorry to see him go.

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Entering Iowa State in the fall of 1911, Leonard Fletcher earned the epxenses of his education first by building clay block silos and later through selling aluminum ware.

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Working didn't slow him up any however, and he was graduated with his class in 1915, winning a degree of bachelor of science in agricultural engineering.

At 24 years of age, the former Mason Cityan became instructor in agricultural engineering at Washington State college, Pullman, Wash., and late in 1916 was appointed as a member of the faculty of the college of agriculture, University of California, as instructor of agricultural engineering. Five years later, he was advanced to association professor of agricultural engineer and head of the division.

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This was a period of absorbing interest for the able young educator, for it was a time marking the beginning of the transition from animal to mechanical power. Instruction was carried on a large scale, and within a few years, 25,000 California famers and farm boys had been instructed in the use and care of mechanical farm power.

While a member of the university faculty, Mr. Fletcher acted as first chairman of the California committee on the relation of electricity to agriculture. His outside activities included co-operation in the development of a town plan for Davis, Cal., and organization of a consolidated high school district. As chairman of the board of trustees, he directed the building of and secured the funds for a $125,000 Davis community church.

Then came an opportunity in the business world and on Jan. 1, 1927, Fletcher entered the employ of the Caterpillar Tractor company in charge of agricultural sales. This activity has included an extensive study of agricultural production methods, the use of mechanical farm power in all parts of the United States and Canada and in a number of European countries.

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He spent most of 1929 in Russia in connection with the application of "Caterpillar" products to U. S. S. R. state and collective farms, and returned to that country again on a similar mission in 1933. He also made close studies of farm equipment use and application in England, Poland, Germany and France.

Rapidly growing recognition of Mr. Fletcher as an authority on world-wide agricultural affairs won him the presidency in 1931 of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. Today he represents that body on the American Engineering council which includes delegates from practically all of the engineering societies in the United States.

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The former Mason Cityan is treasurer and a member of the executive committee of the council. He is also chairman of the power machinery division, Farm Equipment Institute, and is a member of the American Society for the Advancement of Science. For several years he was a member of the agriculture committee of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

Through his work in the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, Mr. Fletcher was in the soil erosion program which had been rapidly gaining impetus throughout the United States. He realized that no suitable equpiment had been designed to build terraces. So he went to work with "Caterpillar" engineers and developed a line of terracing equipment which is now widely used throughout the south.

Mr. Fletcher's writings have been published in "Agricultural Engineering," which is the journal of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers; the "Agricultural Press" and engineering publications. He has addressed the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the World Wheat congress at Regina, Sask., in 1933; the Association of Land Grant Colleges and universities and a number of meetings at the Farm Equipment institute.

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His offcial present position at "Caterpillar" includes supervision of sales training activities and general sales promotion matters, but more particularly the study of improvements and the application of "Caterpillar" built machines and demands for changes in design or construction of such machines.

This wrok is vital for a company like "Caterpillar," and its assignement to the former Mason Cityan is indicative of the esteem in which the organization holds him.

Still a comparatively young man - he's not yet 50 - Leonard J. Fletcher has come a long ways in the 14 years he has been with the famed Illinois company. And it's probably a safe bet that he will go a considerable distance further in the years that lie ahead, for ability and hard work are the attributes that make for success. And they are the keynotes of Leonard Fletcher's career.

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On June 30, 1916, Mr. Fletcher and Miss Ruth Avery, a classmate at Iowa State college, were joined in marriage at Mason City. Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher have three children, Robert, who is following his father's vocation at Iowa State college by majoring in agriculture engineering, and Alice and James of high school age.

Mrs. Fletcher's parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Avery, still live on their farm near Mason City.

Although he has long been away from the Nebraska foothills of the Rockies, and has taken residence in the comparatively flat lands of Illinois, Leonard Fletcher still maintains that his hobby is mountain climbing and trout fishings. However, a visitor to his home, overlooking the Illinois river near Peoria, will tell you that his hobby is the meticulous care of his lawn and trees.

His mechanical leanings tend to assert themselves here too, as his sheds are filled with machinery of all descriptions, - far more than necessary, Mrs. Fletcher is wont to assert. Mr. Fletcher puts his home-loving proclivites this way

"I would rather trap a mole than shoot a bear."

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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