Here is an excerpt from one of my father's memoirs; this one is titled Edwin Ambrose: My Life, written Sept. 7, 2003.
Upon graduation, I was recruited by the American Brakeblok Division of the American Brake Shoe Company, located in Detroit.
They manufactured asbestos/rubber brake lining. One reason I chose Brake Shoe was that I would spend the first year in Detroit, where Nancy, my fiancé now, was living with her parents. I was hired as an apprentice salesman, with a twelve-month training program scheduled. [Can you imagine this now? A 12-month training program?
I was four months into the program, at our proving grounds in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, when a senior man from Brake Shoe’s Research Center in Mahwah, NJ visited our Detroit office looking for a sales apprentice to help promote a new material, sintered metal friction materials, which were non-asbestos. The Company had limited experience with metallic friction materials but was fearful that someday, maybe, metallic materials would replace asbestos-base materials, which was the major part of its business.
Our research people had developed some new materials, set up pilot plant production nearby, and had its first and only customer, the Caterpillar Tractor Company, which had given us a standing order for metallic steering clutch discs. The two other apprentices in the Detroit office declined the opportunity, but when I got back from Pennsylvania and heard about the matter I immediately volunteered. I moved to Mahwah and began traveling to the Midwest to call on Caterpillar, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester, Goodyear Aircraft, Ford Motor Company, and others.
I had a rental car with New York license plates which never saw the state of New York. I would fly to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, pick up the car and drive to customers in Wisconsin and Illinois, ending up at the Indianapolis airport, where I would park the car, and fly home. Ten days later I would fly back, pick up the car and drive to customers in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, ending up at O’Hare airport, where I left the car for another ten days.
I did this for one-year – the only problem being that when I arrived at the parking lot at Indianapolis or O’Hare airports, it would take me a while to remember where I had parked the car!
After one year the Company was confident about the future of sintered metal and bought the Metallic Friction Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Two salesmen came with the acquisition, I would be the third, and we hired a fourth. I was transferred back to Michigan with my new bride, Nancy, and covered Michigan and Indiana. After three years our new Sintermet Division was merged with American Brakeblok Division, and I was right back where I started from!
After four years, during which our three children were born in University Hospital in Ann Arbor, I asked to be transferred into our New York International department.
This request was accepted, and we were transferred. We moved into a small house in Darien, Connecticut with three kids under the age of four. My new boss was soon transferred to a new office in Geneva, Switzerland, to cover new investments in Europe and I was left to cover the rest of the world.
My first overseas trip was to South Africa, in December, 1961.
I traveled extensively from then on, and have covered these trips in a separate file entitled ‘Twenty Trips Around the World’. During these travels, which covered 22 years, I visited India and Australia ten times each and Japan 35 times. During this time I looked after a hydraulics joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which included visits to Russia and China. I retired from Brake Shoe, now called Abex Corporation, in 1983, after 31 years of service.