Burgmaster

Max Holland, When the Machine Stopped: A Cautionary Tale from Industrial America reviewed in TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE 34 (1993): 173-75. The outline if not the detail of Max Holland’s “cautionary tale” will be familiar. A onceentrepreneurial manufacturer, bought up by a go-go conglomerate, buffeted by inflation and stagflation, bought out by junk bonds, blown away by quick-learning Japanese manufacturers, and backed into a specious case for protectionism—it is all here: a classic study in American manufacturing’s decline. New to many will be the details, including accounts of the rise of Burgmaster, an upstart machine-tool firm distinguished by its workable NC turret drills, and the coming of Houdaille (pronounced “WHO-dye”), a conglomerate noted first for its massive leveraged buyout and then for its protectionist pleas. Perhaps only Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts, the leveraged-buyout specialists, are household names. Holland tells a deceptively simple story that encapsulates principal trends in postwar American business. His thoughtful and balanced book was named one of Business Week’s ten best in 1989. Burgmaster’s postwar rise was predicated on assertive technological innovation, entrepreneurial leadership, and attention to user-needs. The firm was founded in 1945 by Fred Burg, a Czechoslovak by birth, a locksmith by training, a machinist by vocation, and a department store salesman by necessity, whose true passion was tinkering with machines. In a rented garage he, his son, and son-in-law began the manufacture of a device to center drill bits in their chucks. Here and subsequently, Fred Burg got his boldest ideas after visiting customers and listening carefully to their problems. One such visit resulted in Burg’s invention of turret drills, which fundamentally enhanced machine shop productivity; their manufacture filled ever-larger factories with orders. And while MIT and the Air Force dithered with a hopelessly complex version of numericallycontrolled machine...