Baking&Snack - February 2013 - 26

2013 BAKING HALL OF FAME

Master of
Automation
W. Clark Pulver led a team of talented engineers at Pulver Systems to design and
build new ways to revolutionize materials handling methods in large-scale bakeries.
Raised in rural Illinois, Clark Pulver
moved his family to Chicago in 1928
and began working as a mechanic
at one of three bakeries operated by
the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea
Co. During the next 20 years, he
rose through the ranks to become
the bakery’s chief engineer when he
saw an opportunity and the entrepreneur bug bit.
That opportunity was in the area
of automating material and product
handling. In the late 1940s, A&P’s
state-of-the-art bakery could crank
out 40 loaves of bread per minute.
Mr. Pulver realized manual product
handling wouldn’t be able to keep
up with increasing production rates.
Working with his regional superintendent Frank Velten, he began
designing and building conveyors
for others while still doing his chief
engineering duties at A&P.
Eventually, word spread of Mr.
Pulver’s talents. Demand for his
equipment spread, and something
had to give. In 1948, Velten & Pulver
was born.
Mr. Pulver’s reputation as a hardworking problem solver led to him
working with many members of the
Quality Bakers of America (QBA)

/ Baking & Snack / February 2013

along the East Coast. Routinely,
he would hop in his Packard drive
to a customer’s plant, analyze the
situation, sell his solution, return
home, build the equipment and then
install it. “Often, nothing more than
a handshake secured the deal,” his
biography by the American Society
of Baking (ASB) noted.
In the mid-1950s, his eldest son
Bill joined the family business.
Although his son had a mechanical
engineering degree, the young man
soon discovered there was much to
learn from his hands-on, self-educated father. Working with a team of
designers and craftsmen, they developed systems that included cooling
conveyors and switching mechanisms that delivered bread from the
depanner to the slicers. The company
pioneered automatic pan stacking,
and its systems eventually led to the
successful introduction of automated
basket and tray loading systems.
During the next 30 years, the
company acquired many US and
international patents for product handling equipment design.
Additionally, Mr. Pulver developed
patented rod belt conveyors, oven
loaders and unloaders, continuous

chain bread and roll coolers, snack
cake loaders, and basket and wire
pallet loaders for bread and buns.
In the 1960s, the company partnered with DuPont Corp. to discover ways to incorporate plastic
components in bakery equipment.
The partnership also led to several
widely used wear components for
the industry. In the 1970s, Pulver
Systems designed a conveyorized
system for McDonald’s drive-thrus
that delivered food from the kitchen
across the dining room to the delivery window. In all, more than 200
of these systems were sold to the
restaurant chain.
By the time he retired in 1973,
Pulver Systems had grown to an
organization of 100 employees and
the underpinnings were in place
for the company’s future growth
into a 70,000-sq-ft facility employing nearly 200 people. His legacy of
achievements left the industry and
his community stronger.
A QBA director of engineering
wrote to Mr. Pulver upon his retirement, “I can’t imagine the industry
being as advanced as it is today
without calling to mind many of
your contributions.”

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Baking&Snack - February 2013

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