Business: Mr. Kollsman’s Number

In most air forces and most airlines, when a pilot nears his landing field he calls the ground, asks for the “Kollsman number.” What he gets is the atmospheric pressure in that area, necessary to adjust his altimeter, which actually is nothing but a barometer graduated in feet of altitude.

Kollsman is the name of a shy, German-born inventor who studied mechanical engineering at the technical schools of Stuttgart and Munich, in 1923 emigrated to the U. S., found work as a truck driver’s assistant, then as a mechanic for Pioneer Instrument Co., a Bendix subsidiary. By 1928 Paul Kollsman had accumulated $500 and started Kollsman Instrument Co., Inc.

He made money every year. Though Sperry led in gyroscopic instruments, and Pioneer continued to make most of the magnetic compasses, engine gauges, accelerometers, etc.. Kollsman’s pet patented altimeter soon copped nearly all of the altimeter market. He made many another fine dashboard instrument besides. Wall Street houses heard of him, urged that he issue stock to finance expansion. Shy Bachelor Paul Kollsman declined, continued to pile earnings back into the company.

Kollsman Instrument Co. employed more than 400 men in its Elmhurst, N. Y. plant and its Glendale, Calif, branch factory, acquired a one-year backlog of instrument orders for outfitting new planes, received royalties on Kollsman’s 200 patents. But no outsider really knew what it was worth until last week, when Paul Kollsman sold out to Square D Co. (maker of electric switches and control equipment, particularly an automatic circuit breaker cheap enough to be used in houses in place of fuse boxes).

Terms (subject to the approval Dec. 28 by Square D stockholders): for Kollsman Instrument Co., Paul Kollsman will receive $2,000,000 of newly issued 5% cumulative convertible preferred Square D stock, plus 35,000 shares of Square D common, which at last week’s market price of 34 were worth $1,190,000, plus either 35,000 more shares of the same common stock or $1,000,000 more of the same preferred. Also Paul Kollsman will receive $20,000 a year as technical adviser, and Kollsman products will still be called Kollsman. Apparently the Kollsman number is $4,000,000 plus.