Louis Eickhoff was an inventor, entrepreneur and successful engineer, among many other things, who was known for revolutionizing the carpet-manufacturing industry.
Eickhoff was born Oct. 11, 1913 and died May 11 at age 96. A private Masonic ceremony was held in his honor at Arlington Memorial Park after his 75 years of loyal membership.
He was born into a successful family who lost everything during the Great Depression and had to work hard at getting it back, according to his daughter, Bonnie Berk. “He very much believed in personal initiative,” she added.
Eickhoff was a life-long learner, according to those who knew him. “He basically taught himself a lot of what he needed to know,” his daughter said. While apprenticing at the Ford Instrument Company, during World War II, his daughter said he put himself through college and engineering school at night.
His work produced numerous inventions that aided the war effort, and he was later promoted to the company’s chief engineer on the Redstone and Nike missile projects, precursors of the Apollo space program.
Ford Instrument Company “recognized his potential and his brilliance. He was just a brilliant engineer and inventor,” Bonnie said. “He was the chief engineer on the early rocket programs, and a lot of the stuff that they were working on is technology that eventually got incorporated into what they were doing on the Apollo program.”
Chuck Berk, Eickhoff’s son-in-law, said that when the market turned south for jute, which had been the primary material in carpet backing, Eickhoff and a friend made a new product and changed the industry.
“He started experimenting with all different kinds of plastics and figured out the right kind of plastic was polypropylene.” His friend bought an old paper mill in Hazlehurst, Ga., that he converted into a polypropylene-extrusion facility.
Materials and blueprints for what would become modified looms arrived one summer from Switzerland, while Bonnie was on break from college. “He searched around the world and found a company in Switzerland that had looms that were wide enough” for his plan, she said. The assembly instructions, however, were in German. “I spent a good part of my summer translating these blueprints from German into English,” she said.
Once the new polypropylene carpet backing had made the rounds with carpet manufacturers, “Everybody wanted the product,” she said. “It became very much in demand.”
Eickhoff also challenged societal norms. In the South, employers in the 60s often took advantage of African-American workers in factory jobs by paying them less than minimum wage. Eickhoff’s factory workers were paid the same wage as everybody else.
“He believed in evaluating the individual person,” his daughter said.
Eickhoff also worked many years for Amoco and eventually became vice president of the plastic products division.
Five or six years before he retired, Amoco went into the plastic bottling business, primarily soda bottles. “Amoco was having a difficult time,” Chuck said. “Some of their bottles would fall over, they couldn’t get their bottles to stay upright and their plants were very inefficient.”
The company recognized Eickhoff as the man to savc the day. “For a few years, he travelled around to all the plants,” Chuck said. “He re-engineered the way the product was made, and re-engineered the plants, and helped them to get that product on track so that it became a worthwhile and profitable product for Amoco.” Eickhoff later helped Amoco get into the solar power business.
“His philosophy was that anyone can achieve whatever they want if they just put their minds to it,” Bonnie said. “That’s how I was raised, that’s how my family was. You could do whatever you wanted to do.”
Eickhoff is survived by four children: Bonnie (Chuck) Berk of Sandy Springs; Henry “Skip” (Ruby) Eickhoff, Cheryl (Dr. Kenneth) Gordon, Ronald (Diane) Eickhoff, all of LaGrange; nine grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
About the Author
