[GreenKeys] Another Zenner obituary

[jhhaynes at earthlink.net]

This was in the Chicago Tribune a few days ago



  WALTER J. ZENNER, 100


    Research executive, inventor

By Carlos Sadovi
Tribune staff reporter

September 6, 2004

With World War II raging, Walter J. Zenner hoped his work in the
communications field could mean the difference between victory and
defeat and help end the bloodshed.

As vice president of research and development at Teletype Corp., which
equipped Navy ships with communications technology during the war, Mr.
Zenner often toiled through the night in his Des Plaines home trying to
solve the latest problem or trying to complete an invention, said his
eldest son, John.

"He was tenacious beyond belief," his son said. "He would be in his home
office working all night and then leave for the office when the sun came
up ... This was a habit during the war."

Mr. Zenner, who turned 100 years old in February, died Friday, Aug. 27,
at a hospital near his home in Mukwonago, Wis., after a recent stroke,
his son said.

Mr. Zenner worked at Teletype in Chicago and Skokie from 1928 until he
retired in 1964. In 1966 he helped found Extel Corp. and was its
chairman. During his tenure he helped oversee the invention of the first
dot-matrix and inkjet printers and eventually earned 115 patents for
communication products, his family said.

Robert Reek, who met Mr. Zenner in 1948 when he started working at
Teletype, said Mr. Zenner, whom he called his mentor, had an uncanny
ability to break down complex problems.

"He was the idea man. I think he lived and dreamed this stuff," Reek
said. "I remember sitting at his desk many times, and he would
disassemble that problem into its component parts."

Mr. Zenner became a world authority in the communications field during
his long career and wrote extensively about the topic, but he preferred
to spend his time working on his latest invention.

"If you asked him he would say, `I'm a tinkerer,'" said his wife, Lois.
"He would work it all out on paper. He was a true engineer."

During the war, John Zenner said, his father was summoned to Washington,
D.C., to help the Navy identify a printing apparatus that had been found
on a captured German U-boat and crack its code.

Although the work earned Mr. Zenner a Navy commendation in 1947, he was
too humble to talk about his accomplishments, his son said.

"He never talked about himself. He would compliment you before he would
compliment himself," he said.

After the war, Mr. Zenner bought a farm in Wisconsin as a family retreat
and eventually retired there. At one time, the family had a fire engine,
a boat and a car that floated on water, his son said.

"He was fun and intelligent and hardworking," John Zenner said. "He had
an absolutely super wit."

Mr. Zenner was born in Chicago but moved with his family to Brookfield,
where he attended Riverside-Brookfield High School. He graduated from
Illinois Institute of Technology in 1928 with a degree in electrical
engineering.

He was president of the Des Plaines Board of Education from 1964 to
1968. He also was a member of the Kiwanis Club and a board member of the
Kiwanis Manor nursing home, a position he held until a month before his
100th birthday, his family said.

Last fall, when asked for the secret to his long life, Mr. Zenner
answered in his typically humble style: "He said, `It's no secret, I'm
just a natural born procrastinator,'" his son said.

Other survivors include another son, Tom; daughters Mary Webster and
Chris Litwin; 11 grandchildren; and 22 great-grandchildren. His first
wife, Mildred, died in 1975.

Services have been held.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune 


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