Resume of William Frederick Breidenbach

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, United States

In his own words “The job experience with the Maud Muller Candy Co. included a designing and screening of all store display material, signs, and candy boxes. It also involved inspection of stores to see if they were kept in good order for merchandising the product. The Seybold Harris Potter experience was an interlude, but was an excellent experience in relationship with machine shop and engineering personnel. Drafting and tool designed training was all acquired at this time. This experience provided a practical background of many phases of machine shop practice from foundry fabrication to assembly and erection. (Layoff). The Dayton Furniture Co. provided public contact and retail sales experience. Responsibilities here included planning of budget and advertising campaigns and execution of layout, copy illustration, plus contact with newspapers, printers and radio personnel. This experience also provided an understanding of retail selling and credit. (Quit to take war job). War-time experience at Aeroproducts made use of mechanical and writing experience previously acquired. This job included liaison with Air Force personnel and Aeroproducts service personnel to develop nomenclature and means of communicating clearly, instructions for the installation, use and maintenance of Aeroproducts aircraft equipment. (Quit to take a better job). Experience with Kercher, Helton and Colette provided an insight into advertising agency operation. Further experience in art, art buying, publications layout and production, media, and account contact made this job most rewarding. (Only an army draft call brought it to a close.) The Dayton Linotyping Co. provided an excellent schooling in the art of typography as well as its mechanical aspects. Selling the service required many of the old talents and a good many new ones were developed. While contacting Frigidaire for typographic work an invitation was extended to take a job as Assistant Advertising, Production Manager. As other talents were discovered by Frigidaire, one job led to another, each time an improvement in money, status, and responsibility. Including planning, designing and producing point of purchase displays, exterior illuminated signs, sales aids and demonstration materials amounting to nearly $750,000 a year. Side assignments included exhibit and store design, stage management for sales meetings, dealer store layout and design, interior decoration, art buying and direction and a service parts packaging program. At the time Frigidaire decided to eliminate all internal operations in Advertising and Sales Promotion and I was asked to transfer into the Shows and Exhibits department. This job required planning and design of tradeshow booths and equipment, and traveling to supervise installation, operation, and removal of the shows. I traveled as exhibit manager with three of the General Motors Moteramas (a valuable experience in logistics and organization). Because of intense personal interest in industrial design and styling, I was invited to join a small group of professional people forming the nucleus of a new Future Product Planning department. This turned out to be the most rewarding experience I have had to date. My classification was industrial designer. The job was described as "original and creative in character, the results depending primarily on invention, imagination and talent and to be predominantly intellectual in character". The duties were described as follows: "to work with architects, building trade organizations and builders on industry needs. To specialize in design of kitchens and related areas. To establish product design parameters. To research color, human engineering and style trends. Design and render all applications developed for presentation to Frigidaire Management". At the end of two years, this work was abandoned and though offered other work with General Motors, I decided to take a layoff due to the sizable separation payment involved and other factors. The most recent employment was with Merchandise Displays Inc. as Designed Director and Design Detailer of exhibits. I also sold and serviced one account regularly and only recently sold them $30,000 of point purchase displays. I have also sold several supermarket interior decoration jobs. In addition to the above I have done considerable freelance consultation and design in the supermarket field. These jobs involve complete architectural detail for equipment, plumbing, wiring, and superstructure. Two of these stores were written up by McCray refrigeration and received national publicity and trade magazines as outstanding sales system. time an improvement in money, status and responsibility. Including planning, designing and producing point of purchase displays, exterior illuminated signs, sales aids and demonstration materials amounting to nearly $750,000 a year. Side assignments included exhibit and store design, stage management for sales meetings, dealer store layout and design, interior decoration, art buying and direction and a service parts packaging program. At the time Frigidaire decided to completely eliminate all internal operations in Advertising and Sales Promotion and I was asked to transfer into the Shows and Exhibits department. This job required planning and design of tradeshow booths and equipment, and traveling to supervise installation, operation, and removal of the shows. I traveled as exhibit manager with three of the General Motors Moteramas (a valuable experience in logistics and organization). Because of intense personal interest in industrial design and styling, I was invited to join a small group of professional people forming the nucleus of a new Future Product Planning department. This turned out to be the most rewarding experience I have had to date. My classification was industrial designer. The job was described as "original and creative in character, the results depending primarily on invention, imagination and talent and to be predominantly intellectual in character". The duties were described as follows: "to work with architects, building trade organizations and builders on industry needs. To specialize in design of kitchens and related areas. To establish product design parameters. To research color, human engineering and style trends. Design and render all applications developed for presentation to Frigidaire Management". At the end of two years, this work was abandoned and though offered other work with General Motors, I decided to take a layoff due to the sizable separation payment involved and other factors. The most recent employment was with Merchandise Displays Inc. as Designed Director and Design Detailer of exhibits. I also sold and serviced one account regularly and only recently sold them $30,000 of point purchase displays. I have also sold several supermarket interior decoration jobs. In addition to the above I have done considerable freelance consultation and design in the supermarket field. These jobs involve complete architectural detail for equipment, plumbing, wiring, and superstructure. Two of these stores were written up by McCray refrigeration and received national publicity and trade magazines as outstanding sales system. “ He also worked for advertising company in Dayton, Kircher, Helton and Colette and with partners opened Merchandise Displays Inc. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay open very long.