Gorton Machine Co. Patents by employees

Employee Patented Inventions

Without the skills and ingenuity of it's employees, a company designing and selling it's own products (as opposed to selling services of some sort) will eventually fail. Over the course of 60 years, a number of people invented and obtained US Patents on a variety of devices.
In rough chronological order (dates represent dates of patent application rather than dates of employment since no known record of employees have survived), these key contributors are listed below. A couple of notes about the content here:

Unless otherwise described, they are listed as residing in Racine, WI.

Note that the actual date of patent issuance/grant may occur many years after the application was submitted - one of Allen Gunderson's patents took 7 years to issue.

The number of patents the individual is an inventor or co-inventor of is listed in parentheses.

The most prolific inventors in the company seem to have been (more than five patents):

Peter M. Henkes (16)
Theodore Eserkaln (13)
Allen Gunderson (14)
Freddy Steinbrecker (11)
Theodore Miller (9)
Charles Larsen (9)

The complete list of patent inventors is:

Charles R. Carpenter (3): 1910 - 1912
George R. Gustafson (1): 1916
George Horner (4): 1923 - 1933
Peter M. Henkes (14): 1928 - 1953
Theodore Miller of Chicago, IL (8): 1932 - 1946
Listed as living in Racine in a 1942 patent application
Harlow Klema (4): 1939 - 1951
Freddy Steinbrecker (11): 1939 - 1956
G.W.Tammen of Chicago, IL (1 Design): 1941
Fred C. Knapp (1): 1942
Note: Fred Knapp is the machinist who inscribed the Lord's prayer on the point of a pin in 1935, and later founded Knapp Engraving (now Air-Logic - the web site is www.air-logic.com)
Walter E. Klema (1): 1944
Harry Sorenson (1): 1944
Arthur H. Buckley, Chicago, IL (2): 1945 - 1947
Theodore F. Eserkaln, Wauwatosa, WI (13): 1946 - 1949
Aage Jensen (1): 1946
Raymond E. Overturf (1): 1946
Otto H. Arndt (1): 1948
Robert J. Stuart, Waukegan IL (2): 1948
Allen D. Gunderson (13): 1948 - 1959
Elton L. Miottel (1): 1950
Kenneth E. Christopherson (1): 1950
Clifford L. Qualler (3): 1948 - 1951
Ezra E. Tessneer (1): 1951
Wallace J. McNamee (1): 1955
Heinz E. Adelt (2): 1955 - 1963
Nels I. Nelson (1): 1958
Donovan F. Peterson, Fort Atkinson, WI: (1) 1957
Alvin C. Welch (1): 1957
Guenter Kuehl (2): 1958
Charles A. Larsen (6): 1961 - 1971
Chuck later founded Lars Machine; listed at living in Union Grove, WI in a 1965 patent application
Harvey W. Zimmerman (2): 1963 - 1970
Daniel J. Mousseau (2): 1970
Joachim K. Scholz (1): 1963
Harry N. Christensen (1): 1963
Donald F. Engstrom (1): 1967
J. L. Dye (1): 1970
Kenneth M. Boutell (1): 1970