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History of Raymond John Wean

The Raymond John Wean Foundation is the legacy of one man’s vision. Any timeline used to describe the evolution of the Foundation must begin with the birth of its namesake.

Raymond John “Jack” Wean was born in Barto, Pennsylvania in 1895.  His father was a flour miller who eventually decided to move his family to Pottstown, PA and supervise the railroad tracks and equipment for the Warwick Iron and Steel Company, which later became part o the Eastern Steel Company.

Jack Wean developed a work ethic while young. While attending grade school, he delivered newspapers for $2.50 a week, then took a job in an industrial boiler shop for 10 cents an hour.  The engineers in that boiler shop took an interest in Jack and gave him encouragement.

He went on to serve as an apprentice metal patternmaker and, at age 18, became a journeyman patternmaker earning wages of 50 cents an hour.  Jack’s formal high school education was deferred for work.  Still, he had respect for self-improvement and advancement through training, so Jack Wean sought out mentors and attended night school classes.

An opportunity opened for Jack to become a plant superintendent, but his father told him “ Son, there will always be jobs for a good man.  College training will equip you for much better work.  Get your education, whatever else happens.”

In 1914, Jack Wean decided he wanted a college education.  He had met students from Carnegie institute of Technology (today Carnegie-Mellon University) and decided that’s where he wanted to attend classes.  He had saved enough money for one year of school… but he didn’t have a high school diploma.

Undaunted, Jack met with Dean Clifford B. Connelly and discovered they shared the experience of having been patternmakers.  Jack was able to convince the Dean he belonged at Carnegie Tech and was admitted.

Jack overcame early trouble with math and excelled academically… so much so that he earned a scholarship to continue his college education.  To earn extra money in his extra time and over the Summer, Jack took on subcontractor work and pitched for a semi-professional baseball team, where he would earn as much as $100 for winning a game. In his senior year at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Jack Wean had an experience that both affirmed his love and respect for education and set the course for his future career.

After years of working summers as both a foreman and efficiency expert at various foundries, Jack had earned a reputation as a foundry management expert.  Just before Easter in his final year at Carnegie Tech, an acquaintance asked Jack to come to Warren, Ohio and evaluate a small steel plant.  Jack did such an impressive job the new owners offered him a job as soon as they acquired the plant. Though tempting, Jack answered by saying “I’m sorry, but I want to finish school.”

The plant owners wanted Jack on staff so badly they called A.A Hamerschlag, President of Carnegie Tech, and asked if Jack could graduate early. Less than 10 days later, Jack was finished with final exams, getting ready for graduation exercises and starting his new job as General Superintendent of Aetna Foundry and Machine Co. in Warren. Over the next 12 years, Jack Wean worked various management jobs at Aetna and Union Switch & Signal Company in Swissvale, PA.

The Wean Engineering Company, Inc. got off to an inauspicious start in June of 1929. Jack rented one room in the Second National Bank Building in downtown Waren, Ohio, hired a secretary and set out to develop his own ideas for new and better approaches to steel processing. The country was in the grip of the great depression, but that had no apparent impact on Jack’s new venture… it was an immediate success.

The first account was an order for pack heating furnaces from Empire Steel Corp. of Mansfield, Ohio. By the end of the first year in business, Wean Engineering had expanded to seven employees working out of several rooms in the bank building. Wean Engineering gave rise to Wean Manufacturing and, later, Wean Equipment Corporation. Warren, Ohio remained the headquarters, but there would later be Wean operations in France, England and Canada.

Jack Wean was not only a successful businessman, he was an innovator in his field.  He developed a “combination system” for rolling steel, which started an industry trend toward reducing the hand labor required to make sheet steel. In 1971, Edwin Gott, Chairman of the board of U.S Steel, said Jack Wean “(was) the man who has contributed more than any other single person to modern day production of flat-rolled steel products; the backbone of today’s steel industry.”