Eugene Clark
Eugene Clark was an American engineer and industrialist whose Clark Equipment Company built the Tructractor in 1917, a powered load carrier that became a forerunner of the modern forklift.
What they did and why it matters
Clark's company turned a factory runabout into the forklift industry, the reason pallets move in and out of every warehouse dock today. Trained in mechanical engineering at Cornell, he merged Michigan manufacturers into the Clark Equipment Company, named for him, and led it until his death. In 1917 its employees in Buchanan, Michigan, built the Tructractor to haul materials around the plant, and the company went on to build lift trucks for other firms. Combined with standard pallets during World War II, these machines made the unit load normal, the basis of putaway, pallet storage, and truck loading in fulfillment centers.
Related people
Events
Sources
- Eugene Bradley Clark (Logistics Hall of Fame) logisticshalloffame.net
- CLARK history (CLARK Europe) clarkmheu.com
- Clark Equipment Company (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org