Earle Floyd COX

Earle was born on the Walter and Cora Mae Cox farm on Redford Table 10 miles south of Callaway in Custer County, Nebraska, March 26, 1918 and passed away March 25, 2011 in Tempe, Arizona. In the 93 years of his life's journey, he lived and worked in the USA, Europe and Africa and traveled widely visiting Morocco, New Zealand, Australia, India as well as multiple trips to Europe and Africa. After graduating with an Ag Engineering degree from University of Nebraska, Earle worked for Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee WI. Among several wartime activities, he was involved in manufacturing components used in the first atomic bombs. After the war he finished his Masters degree in Materials Science at Illinois Institute of Technology and became a research professor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Later he worked on his doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology but before completing it became Chief Engineer for a company making large 4 wheel drive tractors in Stockton, CA. He joined Booz-Allen & Hamilton as a management consultant and went overseas with his wife, son and daughter. In Italy, he assisted the Italian government's activities in changing over military production to civilian products during the Marshall Plan. In Egypt, as part of the "Point 4 Program" now called USAID he worked to streamline the flow of passengers and freight at the Port of Alexandria, Egypt. After several years abroad, he and his family returned to the USA, where he worked on consulting projects in the USA. In the late 50's he was head of American operations for a Swiss railroad maintenance equipment company. He subsequently started his own firm to weld railroad rails into long continuous lengths using welding equipment built with his patented approach for applying the electric butt weld method. Over the years he gained more than 15 patents to his name. He held a series of VP Engineering positions in industries as varied as cast concrete, mobile hydraulics, asphalt road surfacing and heavy construction equipment such as front end loaders. He was involved in the design of air droppable runway construction equipment for the US Air Force as well as re-engineering crawler tractors for better performance. In all his activities he led engineers in developing leading edge products often by developing new processes or embodying new technologies. In the 70's he joined Ford Motor Company and became involved in the Alternate Fuel Program. He retired at 76 and returned as a consultant to Ford for another 2 years.Throughout his career he took time to play golf and was fond of telling about playing the "browns" in Egypt and India and how he played the "postage stamp" hole at St. Andrews better than Tiger Woods! He was married to his college sweetheart, Margaret Randel, a dietician, for over 35 years. Together they had a son, Charles Debbie, an international management consultant and engineer, and a daughter, Joan Kinney Mike Burton, who completed her PhD at University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as teaching there and at Northern Illinois University. He was widowed at 62 and then re-married, this time to a school teacher in the Perry, MI district, Barbara Baumgartner. After over 20 years, he was widowed again. But during those years, he and Barbara visited a great deal of the world, going to Kenya on safari two times, to New Zealand and Australia as well as multiple trips to Europe, for example.He is survived by his son and daughter, his brother, Lloyd Jeanne, his granddaughter, Kate Cox, and grandson, Chad Cox, a step-grandson, Jeremy Burton, as well as a step-daughter, Susan Cornell and two step-sons, Jake and David Baumgartner and ten grandchildren, Tonya Saragoza nee Cornell & Marcella Williams nee Cornell; Bree & Blaize Baumgartner; Jake, Megan, Kyle, Pete and Brock Baumgartner and Grey Burton. He has maintained a residence in Bloomfield Hills, MI for the last 35 years and for the last 5 years has also lived in Tempe, AZ. There will be a memorial service on Wed., March 30 from 2 - 3pm, at Friendship Village, Nunnenkamp Center 1 North, 2535 E. Southern, Tempe, AZ. Visitation in Troy, MI Friday evening April 1 from 6 - 8pm at the A J Desmond Funeral Home 2600 Crooks Road and services at the Chapel of the Psalms, in White Chapel Memorial Park, 621 W. Long Lake Road, Troy, MI at 10 am Saturday, April 2.Sign the Guest Book ateasatvalleytribune.com
This obituary was originally published in the East Valley Tribune.