Max Ephraim Jr

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. This article has been tagged since April 2008.

This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (April 2008)

Max Ephraim, Jr was born on the South Side (Chicago) in 1917. His father was Jewish and his mother Irish, and Max experienced the discrimination common to both groups at the time. In spite of his modest beginnings, he attended “Armour Tech” during the Great Depression and graduated second in his class in just three and a half years with a degree in mechanical engineering (1939) —all while editing the school newspaper, playing intramural sports, participating in the Rho Delta Rho fraternity, and working two jobs to pay his way through school. After graduation, he took one day off before launching into his career at the Electro-Motive Division (EMD) of General Motors. By the time he retired from EMD in 1983, he had gone from draftsman to chief engineer and had been instrumental in the emergence of the diesel locomotive.

His most famous design, the GP7, successfully solidified the transition from steam to diesel locomotives. “The locomotives built today are all lineal descendants of the GP7,” says Rob McGonigal, associate editor of Trains Magazine. “They all have the road switcher and the long hood on the side of the car. The long hood was revolutionary.” Ephraim also engineered such improvements as better fuel economy with the new EMD 710 engine, computerized controls and brakes, and the high-adhesion locomotive, which could more easily go up a steep incline.

He later became chairman of the board of Modern Process Equipment, Inc. (MPE) of Chicago, Illinois (a family owned firm managed by their sons and daughter). He was active in this position for more than 20 years, during which he oversaw the company’s growth in becoming an international supplier of equipment to the coffee industry.

He died September 16, 2001, at the age of 82. The Max Ephraim, Jr Conference Room at the The McCormick Tribune Campus Center on The Illinois Institute of Technology is named in his honor.