70 Years with the Oshkosh Family by Clarence "Inky" Jungwirth
I came home the Friday before Labor Day of 1945 and the first thing I did was register for the draft and then that Friday, I went to the unemployment office in Oshkosh to look for a job. They gave me a ticket for Oshkosh Truck and I didn’t know what that was. I interviewed later that day was asked if I knew anything about engineering or reading drawings. The job was to operate the blueprint machine. The pay was $100/month. At the age of 49, the most beautiful woman in the world came into the engineering department and I was going to be her boss. I thought I was going to be a bachelor for life. I became married at the age of 51. My wife retired in 1986 and I kept working because I’m a workaholic. As long as they kept me busy, I’d keep working. After I finally retired, I laid around for a couple months and I started to look for another job. In March or April, I got a call. The service department was growing but they were having problems and the engineering department was also growing significantly. In March or April of 1988 they asked “how would you like to come back?” and I had already been looking for jobs. 29 years later, here I am. There are about 50,000-60,000 old Oshkosh trucks in the field. The oldest is a 1937 in Colorado. My job is to keep those old trucks going. Keep in mind that I’m 97 years old and I can still remember part numbers from the 1930’s and 1940’s. I deal with customers all over the United States and world and their opinion of Oshkosh is unbelievable quality.
Read More