By: D. Ray Smith | Special to The Oak Ridger
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a two-part article about Jack Case, the long-time Y-12 employee and eventual plant superintendent. A new Y-12 office building under construction has been named the Jack Case Center in his honor.
More than 700 people attended Jack Case's retirement party, held on January 29, 1982.
The event was held in the Oak Ridge Tool and Engineering's new building at the corner of Lafayette Avenue and Emory Valley Road. George Evans was responsible for setting up the event and had obviously found the only place in Oak Ridge that would hold that many people.
Joan Wallace, reporter for The Oak Ridger, covered the story and produced a front-page article with numerous quotes from individuals who, as she wrote, "exuded warmth" for Jack.
One of the most obvious characteristics of Jack's career of strong and compelling leadership at Y-12 was how well-liked he was by everyone. From the janitor to top management, all spoke highly of him. At his retirement party, while he indicated gratitude for working with everyone there, his highest compliments were reserved for the person who cleaned his office every day.
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| Jack Case, left, with Oak Ridge Mayor Al Bissell at Case's retirement party in 1982. |
Jack stood near the entrance of the huge and just barely completed warehouse-type structure of the Oak Ridge Tool and Engineering building for more than an hour shaking hands with those who came to wish him well in retirement. The building did not even have heat installed in it yet. It was the retirement party for the man known to personify excellent leadership and who brought the "can-do" attitude to Y-12 and by doing so enhanced the reputation of all of Oak Ridge.
He was presented with a large number of awards and had numerous letters read, but likely the one item that held the most meaning for him was the leather-bound scrapbook of photos from his career at Y-12. Clyde Hopkins presented that keepsake to him, and his family still has that fine old leather album.
Larry, Jack's oldest son, has shared the contents of that album with me to help tell his father's story. The photos accompanying this article come from that photo album.
Jack Case was a native of East Alton, Ill. He completed a four-year machinist apprentice program as a tool and die maker at Olin Cartridge Co. in his home town. Early in his career, he worked in aircraft plants in St. Louis and Los Angeles, and he received special engineering training at the University of California at Los Angeles.
He also worked in small arms tool design and fabrication with the U.S. Cartridge Co. at St. Louis, Mo. He joined the Tennessee Eastman Corp. at the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant in April 1944.
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| Union Carbide Nuclear Division vice president Clyde Hopkins, left, presents a leather-bound photo album to Jack Case at Case's retirement party in the Oak Ridge Tool and Engineering building in 1982. |
The way Jack came to be selected to go to Oak Ridge was a bit unusual. In 1943, both Jack and his brother-in-law, Ben Karnosky, joined the Illinois National Guard. In April 1944, they both were being drafted into the regular Army at St. Louis. As they were going through the induction process, officers processing the paperwork explained that, civilian or military, this country was in desperate need of tool makers. The decision was immediately made to send Jack to a place called "Oak Ridge" in Tennessee. Jack didn't know what to think since Oak Ridge, being a secret city, wasn't even on the map.
His brother-in-law was going to war in the South Pacific, but Jack was being assigned to an unknown area in Tennessee with no hint of what he would be doing. What he really wanted was to help America win World War II ... and little did he know just how much he would contribute to actually winning the war in just over a year and a half!
He spent the first three months living in a dormitory before bringing his wife and son to live in Oak Ridge with him. Hazel, Jack's devoted wife (now deceased), willingly embraced a new life and an uncertain future in an unknown town in East Tennessee with their young son, Larry. Daughter Linda was born three years later and son Patrick completed the family.
Linda and husband Jim live in Knoxville and have two children, Nathan and Michelle. Nathan resides in Nashville and Michelle lives in Knoxville. Patrick calls both Colorado and Florida his home.
Larry and wife Marilyn have two children, Stacey and Blake. Blake and wife Joanna have a six-month-old son who is named after his great grandfather - our own Jack Marion Case. Stacey and husband Todd have a five-month-old daughter, Ella.
Over the years, Jack worked as a toolmaker, craft foreman, general foreman, general foreman for shops, maintenance department superintendent, maintenance division head, mechanical operations superintendent, assistant Y-12 plant superintendent, deputy superintendent for the Y-12 plant and, finally, Y-12 plant superintendent in 1967.
He served in that capacity until his retirement in January 1982. At his retirement, Clyde Hopkins, then vice president of Union Carbide Nuclear Division, said, "He began work April 10, 1944, as a toolmaker and in five years he was a superintendent. In 1954, he became manager of the largest production division in the plant - the old Mechanical Operations Division which involved 40 to 50 percent of the workers in the whole plant.
"In the 1960s, he was made assistant plant manager and a few years later plant manager. Few persons have been able to influence the lives of others as Jack Case did. He is one of the major reasons Y-12 has the reputation of a can-do outfit.
"And there is no question that people will tell you he was a great fellow to work with."
The name the Jack Case Center - a choice made by Y-12 employees that represented a 2-to-1 margin of more than 300 voters - is an indicator that several people still recall the Jack Case I am writing about. The retirement party held for him may well have been the largest one on record in Oak Ridge.
His impact on Y-12 as the nation was preparing for winning the Cold War helped set the stage for the huge production levels in the 1980s that eventually led to the end of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall coming down, and a new era being ushered in for the world.
Additional details of Jack Case's career will be published as the new 1,200-office building at Y-12 named in his honor is being constructed.
Ray Smith
1/10/06
