Schjeldahl the Pioneer

What do bag-making machines and communication satellites have in common? Gilmore T. Schjeldahl. A plastics, adhesives, and circuitry inventor, Schjeldahl was known as "Shelly." His story may be Horatio Alger in nature, one of hard work, perseverance, and perhaps a bit of luck. More significantly his story is one of scientific genius and entrepreneurship. As one engineer scientist observed, Shelly possessed "the ability to look at a process or product and grasp its essence."

The Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections has recently acquired the business records of Gilmore Schjeldahl, in addition to over two hundred photographs. The Schjeldahl Entrepreneur Records have been fully processed and include annual reports, correspondence, sketch designs and patents, product samples, and publications.

Shelly's youthful inventor's inquisitiveness about how things work was honed in Northwood, ND. He frequented the blacksmith shop, power plant, farm machinery store, and newspaper. He built a static eliminator for the town's newspaper press and his family's first radio.

Shelly attended but never graduated from high school or college, yet he founded five companies and received 16 patents. Shelly's early employment and educational experiences all directed his entrepreneurship. He took courses in electrical machinery maintenance at the North Dakota State School for Science, after which he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for two years as a drafting assistant. Beginning in 1937, Shelly continued coursework in chemistry, biology, and engineering at NDSU, where he met his wife, Charlene. He was drafted in 1943 and served in the infantry during World War II, participating in the Battle of the Bulge.

After returning from Europe, Shelly and his wife moved to Chicago where he worked for Armour & Co. researching resins for a lightweight plastic packaging material, polyethylene. Although it was tough, the material would not seal. Shelly and Charlene experimented on a solution in their kitchen, where they developed a hot knife-sealing process that cut and sealed two plastic sheets simultaneously.

Shelly continued his experiments after he left Armour in 1946 and moved to Minneapolis, eventually establishing a bag-making operation in his basement. What he initially produced were pickle-barrel liners using a foot-operated cutting knife. In 1948, this operation evolved into his first company Herb-Shelly, Inc., named in honor of his salesman who had lent him operating capital. Shelly's Farmington, MN thermoplastic manufacturing business eventually produced a variety of polyethylene packaging materials and plastic bag liners. For instance, Shelly created the first plastic-lined airsick bag for Northwest Orient Airlines in 1949 (a bag is included in the collection).

In 1955, Shelly organized G.T. Schjeldahl Company in Northfield, MN, in another inauspicious location, the basement of a drugstore. He further developed his ideas and research with lamination and adhesives for bonding the then-new DuPont polymer called Mylar and his experimentation with atmospheric balloons. Shelly also continued manufacturing his uniquely designed bag-making machines. From the beginning, the Schjeldahl Company was diversified. Initially, two departments emerged: the Mechanical Division manufactured packaging machinery and the Polyester Film Division developed adhesives and balloons.

Shelly's discovery that created a revolutionary heat-sealing adhesive tape points to his genius. He found that his breath caused the surface of one of several resin samples to crystallize, becoming "less tacky and easier to handle." Shelly created an adhesive that provided polyester bonding of exceptional strength, in addition to electrical insulation between electrical parts and printed circuits. The adhesive tapes were marketed as Schjel-Bond, which evolved into an extensive adhesive product line.

The Schjeldahl Company began engineering and fabricating high-altitude balloons in the early 1950's for the Office of Naval Research at the University of Minnesota. By 1956, the company had constructed forty Mylar balloons, the smallest 8 feet in circumference, the largest 500 feet. One balloon made from 0.00025 inch Mylar attracted national headlines when it reached a record altitude of 27 miles and traveled from Minnesota to Kentucky in three days.

Commercially, Shelly applied his plastic and adhesive expertise to build unique "Schjeldomes," which were air-supported plastic buildings. By 1962, his own 340 foot long "Schjel-Mile" factory had expanded into a 54 acre "Schjel-Town" consisting of two "Schjel-Miles," one 540 feet long, a general office and laboratory, and other small buildings.

Shelly at Schjel-Town Site

The accumulation of research, experimentation, and testing of high-altitude balloons laid the foundation for Shelly's pioneering participation in the United States space race with the Soviet Union. The Russians launched Sputnik, the first man-made earth satellite, on October 4, 1957. The United States responded with Explorer three months later on January 31, 1958 and the race in the use and exploration of space was on.

On August 12, 1960, NASA launched G.T. Schjeldahl Company's 100 foot Echo I Satelloon, at the time the largest man-made object ever sent into orbit, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Larger than a ten-story building, it could be seen from earth and circled it every two hours 1000 miles out in space. Fabricated from very thin polyester film vapor deposited with aluminum and sealed with a Schjel-Bond adhesive tape, Echo I acted as an electromagnetic reflector. As testimony to the durability of its construction materials, Echo I circled the earth approximately 36,000 times for eight years sending radio and television signals back to earth, creating the first coast-to-coast transmission of a television picture in 1963.

NASA Administrator, Dr. T. Keith Glemnan, described the importance of Echo I in Schjeldahl Company's 1960 annual report, "Echo I is one more significant step in the United States' program of space research and exploration. The program is being carried forward vigorously by the United States for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind. This satellite balloon may be used freely by any nation for experimentation."

Echo II dwarfs a Schjeldahl truck

NASA launched Schjeldahl's Echo II, a 135 foot thirteen story high sphere of laminated aluminum foil on either side of thin Mylar, in 1964 from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. Its purpose was "to relay the first American-Russian talks via space." Again, Schjel-Bond sealed the laminates and the "orange peel like sections" of the rigid communication Satelloon. Schjeldahl scientists developed optical coatings to control the surface temperature of the balloon's skin, initiating the Company's thermal control business. Echo II orbited the earth for five years. A 1969 newspaper account suggested that "The two Echo satelloons probably have been seen by more people than any other man-made object ever created, including the Great Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, or the Brooklyn Bridge."

Besides pioneering Echo I and Echo II, the Schjeldahl Company fabricated other balloons. PAGEOS (Passive Geodetic Earth-Orbiting Satellite) was launched in 1966 to provide information for remapping the earth. This satellite orbited twice as high as either Echo satelloon. ROSE (Rising Observational Sounding Equipment) was a free-rising super pressure balloon that detected meteorological phenomena. Heavy-load balloon systems designed to carry telescopes and other instruments were developed for the Stratoscope and Stargazer programs.

Shelly resigned as Chairman of the Board in 1966 to establish the Gil-Tech Development Company, although he remained on the Board and continued as Schjeldahl's major stockholder. Gil-Tech continued Shelly's packaging interests. The company developed systems-related packaging machinery to manufacture molded plastic containers using the blow molding process and computers to control the systems. As a complement to Gil-Tech Shelly created the Plastic Netting Machine Company in 1970, which developed and produced devices for filling Gil-Tech's rigid plastic containers.

In 1974, G.T. Schjeldahl Company changed its name to Sheldahl, Inc. to simplify the spelling. This had not been the first spelling name change. Shelly's immigrant grandfather changed Skjeldahl to Schjeldahl for easier pronunciation. In 1975, Sheldahl built the bioshield containers for the two Viking landers sent to Mars.

After a heart attack in 1978, Shelly founded his fifth company, the Cathedyne Corporation. Always inquiring, he collaborated with his physician to improve coronary angioplasty catheters. Cathedyne was bought by Angiomedics, Inc., a subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc. in 1983.

Gilmore T. Schjeldahl died on March 10, 2002, in Lenox, Massachusetts. His contributions to the country's space program and our everyday life have been enormous, whether they be thermal control materials for the space shuttle, or automobile air bags and antilock brakes, window shades for airplanes, or flexible circuitry for children's toys, to list but a few. The wealth and diversity of the Schjeldahl records document these contributions, and more. They document the creativity, curiosity, and the life of the inventor.

Sandy Slater, Head, Special Collections