My very first design assignment in the USA is as assistant art director for Reach, McClinton & Humphrey, Inc., Boston, which later morphed into Humphrey, Browning & Macdougall. At that time Reach, McClinton & Humphrey was already an established agency with a long list of clients which included accounts like the Prudential Insurance Company, Titleist Golf Balls, Beautiful Hair Breck, and too many others to list.

I worked under two very amazingly supportive art directors. Horave Gray and Warren Manning. They took time to introduce me to the current ways in which agencies functioned and work was processed. However, my sole reason for coming to America was to understand the use of metaphors in advertising related communication.

Working for Chemie Grünenthal GmbH, which was formed after the end of WW II, our design staff had to respond to the advertising campaigns for pharmaceuticals that were produced on our premises under licenses for American pharmaceutical houses. These corporations asked us to use their promotional materials for the European market.

A very distinct problem emerged; physicians in Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy, to whom these mailings and ads were directed, failed to understand the American use of metaphors in the messages. Customer responses made clear that many messages were lost or did confuse customers. I made the proposal to study the use of metaphors in American advertising for one year at Rhode Island School of Design, while visiting also the design offices at Ciba-Geigy in Summit, New Jersey, being advised by Jack Marmeras and their New York advertising agency of Sudler & Hennessey.

The problem in a capsule: If one looks at Central-European printed matter like posters and brochures of that time, it becomes clear that continental designers dealt mostly with an over-exaggeration of physical realities, in which the material qualities are further enhanced through super realism – “it is not just what it is, it is much more than what it is”. In this vein, the Knoll chair is shown in spectacular simplicity – warts and all.

Quite differently, in New York, agencies would rely on conceptual metaphors – on something else as a communication bridge like language puns or colloquialisms of daily life, even wrong grammar, about concepts to remove a communications gap and substitute a feel of familiarity as if one had experienced something like this before.

For examples, in the marketing of a mood changing medication, American Cyanamid selected a photograph of a typical New York intersection at rush hour, blurred and with accentuated hustle and bustle, while the name of the product was stenciled in large white gothic letters, to resemble the safety zone of zebra stripes, onto the pedestrian side walk. In an other example, they employed the outline of the same letters, but inscribed in the sand of a beach, suggesting leisure, absence of pressure. In contrast to the continental approach, the American Knoll chair would be shown as a “hot seat”, a ”hot pepper”.

Since the sixties “language” has become one of my major foci. Unfortunately, over the years designers have collapsed the holding tank of design or image metaphors. The use of sophisticated metaphors has been eroded. There has to be more to the concept of “peace” than the lion and the lamb of the dove with or without olive branch. Unless a designer’s love and knowledge of literature and poetry is rekindled, we should not be surprised by the results of “twitterings”.

Unfortunately, RISD at that time, had no faculty experts in the area of my research interests. I was left to my own devices and used my free time to explore classical typography with the help of John Ettlinger, curator at the Ann Mary Brown Memorial Library, which held a special collection of exquisite incunabula. From that time on, I have always believed that the work of Aldus Manutius deserves to be historically enshrined. I consider him one of the early designers, a great role model for any practitioner. He spoke several ancient languages, and because of this he was able to surround himself with visionaries of his time.

He was an extremely hard worker, allowed no idle chit-chat; visitors had to participate actively in the production of his books, either as translators or cranking the press or inking the type, pulling their impressions. The upshot of his efforts was the rebirth of knowledge embedded in many Greek and Hebrew texts; epics, poetry, history, customs, philosophical beliefs, which without his energy and committed efforts would have been lost for all of the following generations and humanity, maybe forever.

In view of his cultural contributions, I never considered my design experience important enough to warrant a historical account, even though I have always loved designing, had great success, and hope to continue to design until the very end of my days. Just perusing the technical complexity imbedded in the amazingly detailed tabular work in Johannes Kepler’s “Tabulae Rudolphinae” or in his early application of Euclid’s principles to his study of the spheres in “Harmonice Mundi” will make anybody humble. It is his perseverance in spite of all the technical problems of his times, which encourage us to commit ourselves to larger and more important issues than the “award circus”.

As it turned out, one year was much too short for understanding the eloquent use of metaphors, especially because of my personal language handicap of owning just a very narrow reservoir of words, which allowed me to communicate efficiently in English/German pidgin in the everyday design office environment, but it was way short of understanding colloquialisms and especially puns, the very important form of word play suggesting and exploiting multiple meanings of words. I landed an assistant art director’s job with Reach, McClinton and Humphreys in Boston, hoping to expand my understanding of the regional use of metaphors in advertising. I worked on accounts like EG+G, Edgerton, Germershausen and Grier; Acushnet Golf Balls, using strobe photographs provided by Harold E. Edgerton and his collaborator Gjon Mili. Mili was an Albanian emigrant to the United States. He attended MIT, where he worked closely with Professor Harold Edgerton in the development of strobe photography and stop-action techniques – I believe that the work at Reach McClinton for EG&G contributed greatly to being later appointed to MIT, after a very lengthy interview with James Killian. MIT chairman of the board, who was a friend of Herald Edgerton.

Delegated to a secondary role, I was not able to continue my investigation at Reach, McClinton and Humphrey, and opened up the design studio of  Leverett A. Peters and Associates; with Leverett Peters, business manager, Clifton Hadfield, illustrator and me as designer. Accounts were Badger Industries, Cornell University Press, Deck House, Inc., Simmons College, Harvard University, Stanmar Leisure Homes, Oxford Paper Company (photographs by Herbert Matter), WGBH Boston, and others.

Suddenly, I had been in this country longer than I had been at Grünenthal. Grünenthal had always been very supportive, and I was treated very well by top management, but because of the company’s Thalidomide scandal, in which management did not own up to their responsibilities to prevent the staggering number of births of deformed children, I decided not to return. I had financed my stay in the US, and therefore did not feel any obligations toward a group of administrators who behaved recklessly and against all human ethics.

By the way, this family-owned company with literally billions of annual profits, is still not responding in adequate proportion to the plight of these children, now grown to aging adults, and troubled by their severe handicaps.

During the early sixties, there were very few “graphic design studios” in Boston; Polaroid with Paul F Giambarba and later Bill Field, or Arthur D. Little, or Carl Zahn at Boston’s MFA, or Omnigraphics and the MIT Office of Publications was slowly emerging . . . at least the typical Boston advertising and book publishing community was not aware of any European style design or modular typography, nor was it interested.

Actually, even a decade later, highly trained and well educated graduates from Basel could not find assignments in Boston or when at ridiculously low salary levels, and although immensely capable, had to compete against large numbers of commercial artists. That situation began to change in the middle seventies with the studios of Frank Glickman, Michael Sands, Emily Hiestand, Gil Fishman, Coco Raynes, and others.

Although times were not necessarily easier, with the Korean War slowly vanishing in the distance, McCarthyism over, but the Vietnam crisis looming, people’s egos were not as complicated as they are today. Persons were very generous with time and advice. There was not yet this amazing rush for exceptional status and reliance on credentials.

Dr. Edgerton enjoyed that Warren Manning and I wanted to use his strobe photography in proposals for advertising campaigns for Titleist golf balls or Raleigh bicycles. He got a kick out of these opportunities, which were both technical challenges and also provided a certain sense of notoriety.

I was just a design kid, but he never let me feel the distance between his social and academic standing and accomplishments and my up-start social position. In fact, he seemed to enjoy giving me a hand up. His door was always open.

We never had to make appointments. He would always be available. He also would be full of interesting stories. One day, he showed off his Goucho whip, he had collected on one of his trips to South America with Jacques-Yves Cousteau to Lake Titicaca, with which to explain the breaking of the sound barrier, not outside but in the narrow campus corridors, which made the snapping sound not like a startling gun shot but much more like a cannon’s firing. He constantly taught both novices and experts, intelligently, but down to earth.

Dr. Edgerton also had a great sense of humor. When I used the initials of E, G and G, he said without any prompting or hesitation: “That is us…a bunch of egg-heads”.

EG&G, formally known as Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc., was a United States national defense contractor and provider of management and technical services. The company was involved in contracting services to the United States government during World War II and conducted weapons research and development during the Cold war era (since 1948 onwards.). Its close involvement with some of the government’s most sensitive technologies has led to its being cited in conspiracy theories related to Department of Defense black projects.

Early history

In 1931, MIT professor Harold Edgerton (a pioneer of high-speed photography) partnered with his graduate student Kenneth Germeshausen to found a small technical consulting firm. The two were joined by fellow MIT graduate student Herbert Grier in 1934. Bernard “Barney” O’Keefe became the fourth member of their fledgling technology group.

The group’s high-speed photography was used to image implosion tests during the Manhattan Project. The same skills in precisely timed high-power electrical pulses also formed a key enabling technology for nuclear weapon triggers. After the war, the group continued their association with the burgeoning military nuclear effort and formally incorporated Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc. in 1947.

1950s and 1960s

During the 1950s and 1960s, EG&G was involved in nuclear tests as a major contractor for the Atomic Energy Commission. EG&G made extensive use of the Nevada Test Site for weapons development and high-technology military testing at Nellis AFB. EG&G has shared operations responsibility for the NTS with Livermore Labs, Raytheon Services Nevada, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering and others. Subsequently EG&G expanded its range of services, providing facilities management, technical services, security, and pilot training for the U.S. military and other government departments. EG&G builds a variety of sensing, detection and imaging products including night vision equipment, sensors for detection of nuclear material and chemical and biological weapons agents, and a variety of acoustic sensors. The company also supplies microwave and electronic components to the government, security systems, and systems for electronic warfare and mine countermeasures.

1970s and 1980s

During the 1970s and 1980s, the company, then led by O’Keefe, diversified by acquisition into the fields of paper making, instrumentation for scientific, marine, environmental and geophysical users, automotive testing, fans and blowers, frequency control devices and other components including BBD and CCD technology via their Reticon division. In the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these divisions were sold, and on 28 May 1999, the non-government side of EG&G Inc. purchased the Analytical Instruments Division of Perkin Elmer for US$425 million, also assuming the Perkin Elmer name. At the time EG&G was based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and made products for diverse industries including automotive, medical, aerospace and photography.

1999–present

From 1999 until 2001, EG&G was wholly owned by The Carlyle Group.[6]

In August 2002, the defense-and-services sector of the company was acquired by defense technical-services giant URS Corporation. URS’ EG&G division is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and employs over 11,000 people. During its heyday in the 1980s, EG&G had about 35,000 employees. In December 2009, URS announced its decision to discontinue the use of “EG&G” as a division name. The headquarters issued a press release stating that by 1 January 2010, it would discontinue using secondary corporate brands, including the EG&G name and logo. In the same press release, URS stated that it would also retire two other acquired brands, Washington Group and Lear Siegler.

URS Chief Executive Officer Martin Koffel explained the change in an e-mail transmitted to employees: “In today’s marketplace, it is essential we present a consistent, unified brand to our customers and achieve the competitive advantages enjoyed by our peers in the industry…This change will allow us to present a single brand that is easily understood by our clients.”

Koffel indicated that the move to a single corporate brand would affect neither the internal organization nor the existing reporting structure. However, EG&G Division will become URS Federal Services.

Janet Airlines

EG&G’s “Special Projects” division was the notable operator of the Janet Terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, NV, a service used to transport employees to remote government locations in Nevada and California. EG&G also had a joint venture with Raytheon Technical Services, creating JT3 LLC in 2000, which operates the Joint Range Technical Services contract.

EG&G’s clients

NASA
Departments of Energy, Defense, Treasury, Transportation, Defense Logistics, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Homeland Security and U.S. Coast Guard.

Lear Siegler Services, Inc.
EG&G Technical Services, Inc. and Lear Siegler Services, Inc. consolidated becoming one of the nation’s leading U.S. federal government contractors providing operations and maintenance, systems engineering and technical assistance, and program management, primarily to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The companies are separate legal entities, but share a common management.

In December 2009, URS announced its decision to discontinue the Lear Siegler name for this division.

Less