Champion moving last work from city; firm helped to put Toledo on map

A century after an enterprising former stock boy moved his fledgling company from Boston and transformed it into an automotive titan, the last vestiges of that company will pull out of Toledo for good this year.

The corporate owners of Champion Spark Plug have informed approximately 40 remaining Toledo employees that the research center and small production line on Upton Avenue will close this year.

Jim Burke, director of corporate communications at Southfield, Mich.-based automotive supplier Federal-Mogul Corp., said the work being done in Toledo would be transferred to facilities in Plymouth, Mich., and Burlington, Iowa. About half of the current work force will be given the opportunity to transfer to other facilities, Mr. Burke said. "We expect the transfer of work presently at that facility will occur by the end of the year," Mr. Burke said.

"Champion is one of the corporations that gave Toledo its identity because of its great marketing success early in the 20th century," said Timothy Messer-Kruse, a professor at Bowling Green State University and longtime Toledo historian

The Champion spark plug became well-known as the auto industry developed, and its ties to Toledo became ubiquitous, he said.

"It's a curious technology that was not exactly pioneered in Toledo but perfected in Toledo, and it was a part of our identity as an automotive assembly, parts, and glass community," he said.

Messages for current employees of the facility at 900 Upton weren't returned yesterday. However, former employees who lost their jobs decades ago when the plant laid off hundreds of workers weren't surprised by the latest decision.

"I didn't think there was much left," said Janice Tye, who was a credit analyst for Champion until much of its corporate staff departed for St. Louis in 1993.

"Champion was kind of like a cornerstone of Toledo, Ohio, for years and years. When they relocated, you just had to accept it and move on and get a different job."

When the transfer comes, it will remove the last spark of life from a massive facility that fundamentally transformed the automotive industry in its early years and powerfully aided Allied war efforts during World War II.

Founded in Boston in 1907 by Robert A. Stranahan, Sr., and his brother Frank D. Stranahan, Champion was originally dedicated to importing aftermarket parts from Europe for the earliest automobiles. Fresh out of Harvard University, a young Robert Stranahan had gone to work for his brother's fledgling company as a stock boy and later became a traveling salesman for his brother.

Robert began to experiment with better designs for spark plugs, leading him to patent a design for a copper, asbestos-lined gasket. After unsuccessful attempts to sell his design to automakers, he caught the interest of Toledo auto magnate John North Willys, who promised to purchase the Champion spark plugs if they were made closer to his plant in Toledo.

The Stranahans moved their business from Boston to a loft above a laundry near the Willys plant in 1910, and in 1912, occupied the Upton Avenue plant. By 1913, the company was not only supplying spark plugs to Willys-Overland, but was powering the vehicles coming off Henry Ford's assembly lines as well.

The company expanded quickly and continued to innovate with its spark plug designs. Just prior to World War II, Robert Stranahan recognized that aviation spark plugs of the era would not hold up to the rigors of military flight, and began work on a new ceramic insulator that revolutionized spark plug design.

The new plugs were first produced in 1941 - without a government contract and just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - and were in broad production by 1942 as the U.S. war effort expanded exponentially.

In 1943, representatives of both the Army and Navy traveled to Toledo to honor Champion for its pioneering work.

In the decades after the war, Champion continued to grow. The company sold public stock in 1958, purchased another Toledo icon, the former DeVilbiss Co., in 1967, and purchased Anco Windshield Wipers in 1977.

But by the mid-1980s, overcapacity in the industry began to drag on Champion. In 1984, the company closed its Fort Industry plant on Enterprise Boulevard, and in 1988 sold DeVilbiss Co. to a competitor.

In 1989, the former Dana Corp. tried to buy Champion for $590 million, but its offer was topped by Houston-based Cooper Industries Inc. at $707.5 million.

Within months of the sale, Cooper chose to shutter most of Champion's Upton Avenue plant, shifting work to Burlington and other facilities and costing Toledo 430 jobs.

Champion's remaining Toledo presence of almost 400 corporate and research jobs shrank further during the intervening 20 years until this most recent announcement.

Contact Larry P. Vellequette at:

lvellequette@theblade.com

or 419-724-6091.