Harry Heltzer

Heltzer, Harry
Age 94
Former 3M CEO
The young graduate of the University of Minnesota began his 3M career in the depression 1920's lifting bags of roofing granules out of railroad box cars. His pay was .35 cents an hour.
Rising in the ranks and becoming chairman and chief executive officer of 3M, Harry Heltzer became a leader in the development of reflective highway signs, road striping and license plates now seen on roadways around the world. Later in his career when he directed all of 3M's operations, he also played a major role in defining the mission of multinational enterprise as he helped catapult his St. Paul based company into a major presence on the world's economic stage.
Mr. Heltzer passed away on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at his home in Lenoir, N.C. He was 94 (born August 22,1911) and had been living in North Carolina with his wife, Jerri, since retirement in 1976 while maintaining residence at Kellogg Square apartments in downtown St. Paul.
In 1970, when Heltzer took over the company's top position, 3M' sales outside the United States were 35% of total sales. By 2004, 3M's sales outside the U.S. were 61% of the company's global sales.
In between, there were many reforms initiated by him and pursued by his successors, not the least of which was a change in how the company viewed its global mission.
In the early 1950s, the company's foreign sales initially were derived from U.S. operations in which American sales people carried catalogues and order books across national borders in a quest for sales.
Under Heltzer's direction, 3M accelerated efforts to set up shop in host countries where it was hoped that the company would become an integral part of local economies. The reasoning was that a manufacturing company such as 3M had to be inside markets and cultures in order to understand them and formulate and execute tailor-made policies for growth.
To the satisfaction of the host countries, this approach produced jobs for local nationals in sales and manufacturing and eventually research. It also hastened job growth in the U.S. The reason: since a complete line of company products was not made in other countries, 3M was able to fill out product lines with exports from the U.S As early as 1972, one in eight of 3M jobs in the U.S. were derived from international operations. Today, the ratio is closer to one in four.
3M's plan for growth across national borders also depended upon an exchange of technology and managerial expertise among 3M subsidiaries including those outside the U.S. Heltzer accelerated this process by reorganizing the domestic company.
Under Heltzer's direction, the people responsible for domestic product lines- in those days, group and division vice presidents were also given responsibility for encouraging growth of those lines in other countries. To accomplish this, they had to be in close communication and responsive to managers in diverse cultural and economic settings. Partnerships of 3Mers, both formal and informal, were formed across international borders as 3M expanded into more than 150 countries.
In a lecture at the Wharton Graduate School of Business, Heltzer pointed out his reasoning. "It just makes sense. The U.S. represents six percent of world population. We also should be serving the other 94 percent of the world's people."
A quiet, unassuming man who was as at home on the factory floor as he was in the councils of international business, Heltzer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved to Minnesota at a young age, graduating from Minneapolis North High School.
At the University of Minnesota, Heltzer determined that he would become an engineer, but what kind? His first instinct was to go to into electrical engineering but he settled on metallurgical engineering because "that's where the jobs were at the time." To the faculty, he was known as a hard worker with special talents for mathematics. At times, his academic mentors also were concerned that the student may not be getting enough to eat, given the depression and absence of financial assistance.
The only graduate of his class of 1933 to get a job in manufacturing, Heltzer embarked on a career at 3M, then a company best know for its adhesives.
Assigned to an industrial minerals section, where roofing granules were the main source of income, Heltzer showed an interest in glass beads that could be glued to tape. Recognizing that the glass beads could reflect light, he became involved in a project to make a reflective tape product that could be adhered to highways to make the center lines of roadways more visible.
As he told it years later, he got on his hands and knees and with a rubber roller, attempted to make tape with glass beads stick to the center of Victoria and Marshall Streets in St. Paul. As he put it: "A couple of weeks later, I was right back there on my hands and knees after a rain, freeze and thaw had loosened it. The center line was flapping all over the street."
Beads on paint, however, was 10-15 times brighter than white paint alone and therefore much more visible to motorists. Eventually, despite initial setbacks, Heltzer and others persevered in research and development efforts that resulted in reflective tape that adhered to pavement. They also developed highway traffic signs that were more than 500 times brighter than paint. Called Scotchlite brand reflective sheeting beginning in 1939, its performance improved over the years and became a stalwart among the company's many product lines.
In World War II, Heltzer became a member of a team working on a secret project for the U.S. government. The goal was to reflectorize life rafts so that downed pilots could be located and rescued. The project was classified to keep the Japanese armed forces from taking advantage of the situation. It also was successful because it helped rescue pilots including those in the Pacific Ocean.
His efforts in retro-reflective products (in which light is reflected directly back in the direction of the light source) led to a number of promotions in sales and eventually manufacturing. Heltzer was appointed president in 1966, the same year that 3M sales hit $ 1 billion. (3M sales in 2004 were $20.01 billion.)
Mr. Heltzer became a leader in civic and corporate affairs. He was president of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association (1970-71), trustee of the U of M Foundation (1974), and received the university's Outstanding Achievement Award (1966). He served as a director or trustee of many other organizations, including General Motors, Children's Hospital and First Bank.
In 1975, as Watergate investigations continued, it was discovered that three 3M executives had made illegal political contributions. In addition to the perpetrators,