Tuesday, February 20. 2007
End of the line...or is it?
Tuesday, February 13. 2007
Test
Wednesday, July 19. 2006
Miscellaneous stuff
Monday, June 12. 2006
Passing of History: Hammond
I've been away for a while...life has been busy, although both of my readers 
probably don't really want to know all of the sordid details about how I've got a girlfriend (Mon Dieu!), a tenant, and a whole bunch of other banal details about my life. My work has also been somewhat boring as well...I bought a new hard drive last week...
From early 1991 to late 1992, I worked at Hammond Map Company in Maplewood, NJ. Caleb "CD" Hammond was the Patriarch of the company that his son Dean and daughter-in-law Kathy ran. Herb Pierce was head of the Drafting Department that was taken over by one of my early mentors, William "Bill" Abel. Both passed away last week and my friend and former coworker Web sent out the obits. Chuck Lees, quoted in one of the articles, was my former boss in the editorial department where I spent most of my career there:
For decades on end, they drew the world
Sunday, June 11, 2006
BY JUDY PEET
Star-Ledger Staff
People paying their respects to Herbert Pierce, 87, and Caleb Hammond, 90, as they lay next to each other in a Maplewood funeral home last week were saying goodbye not just to old friends, but to an era.
For half a century, the two men worked side by side, making some of the best maps in the world at what was called one of the nicest companies in Maplewood.
Together, they took the company founded by Mr. Hammond's grandfather in 1900 and built it into a cartographic giant, second only to Rand McNally in Chicago. At the same time, Mr. Hammond created a workplace where family mattered and few employees left.
"It was a sweet little company," recalled Mr. Hammond's daughter, Beth Lynn Steele, 63. "I'm really sad that it's gone."
There are still Hammonds and there is still a Hammond World Atlas Corp., but the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Langenscheidt Publishing Group, a German publishing behemoth whose other acquisitions include Hagstrom Maps, American Map Corp., Berlitz and the World Almanac.
In its heyday in the early 1960s, Hammond employed 120 draftsmen, artists and researchers at its comfortable, paneled offices an easy walk from the quaint Maplewood village center.
Now the maps are reproduced by a half-dozen computer technicians at a generic office complex in Springfield (and reviewers say the quality of the maps remains high). The only person left who remembers Hammond of the old days is an elderly secretary.
She won't tell her age or name because she is afraid Langenscheidt might notice she reached retirement age when Jimmy Carter was still in office. She stays, she says, because she always liked the job and she's still good at it.
Most of the employees, however, left in the mid-1990s, when "it became obvious that the company could no longer survive," said former editor in chief Chuck Lees.
"What is ironic is that we were the company that was responsible for the demise of beautiful, handmade paper maps," said Lees, now 73, who was with the company for 40 years before leaving in 1997. "We were a company of old-timers who made ourselves obsolete."
What killed Hammond as a local, family-owned company was computer technology.
For centuries, maps were reproduced the same way: hand-drawn on paper and updated by whatever information was available.
In 1990 at Hammond, for example, keeping maps current still meant relying on researchers with extensive sources including the U.S. Board of Geographical Names, the State Department, the CIA, the United Nations and a Budapest-based organization called Cart Actual.
By that time, Caleb Hammond was chairman of the company board of directors, and his son, C. Dean Hammond, was running operations. The son was determined to jump on the technology bandwagon.
With the help of Mitchell Feigenbaum, the mathematical physicist who developed fractal geometry (the formula that predicts chaos), Dean Hammond developed the world's first digitized world atlas, published in 1992.
It was a work that took five years and millions of dollars to develop. The digital software revolutionized the map world, paving the way for Internet maps. And, admits Dean Hammond, it probably ruined the company.
"We made hand-drawing paper maps archaic," says Hammond, now 63. "We no longer needed or could afford our large staff. Then the Internet and global satellite positioning took over and we weren't really needed at all."
Teetering on insolvency, the company sold out to Langenscheidt in 1999. Hammond, who describes himself as a "map freak, but with gadgets, not paper," said he was "relieved not to deal anymore with the drama of a family business."
"I'll always love maps," said Hammond, who now works as a custom calendar salesman. "But that old world is gone."
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1150000903240730.xml?starledger?obits&coll=1
Caleb Dean Hammond Jr., 90, chairman of family map company
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
A service will be private for Caleb Dean Hammond Jr., 90, of Maplewood, a third-generation map company executive, who died Monday in Overlook Hospital in Summit. Arrangements are by the Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, Maplewood.
Mr. Hammond was chairman of the board of C.S. Hammond Inc. in Maplewood, a publisher of maps and atlases, where he started as a production manager in 1939. He retired in 1998 from the company, which was established by his grandfather, C.S. Hammond, in 1900. Earlier, Mr. Hammond was a sales engineer for Texaco in Port Arthur, Texas, from 1937 until 1939.
He received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 1937 from Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where he was the football manager in 1936. He was also a member of the Skull, a senior society, and the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. From 1978 to 1999, Mr. Hammond served as a trustee at WPI, which in 1992 honored him with its Robert N. Goddard Award in recognition of outstanding professional achievement.
Mr. Hammond served as a lieutenant in the Coast Guard Reserve from 1942 until 1945 as an engineering officer on the APA14, USS Hunter Liggett, a manned combat transport.
He was a member of the American Geographical Society and the Publishers Lunch Club, both in New York City, and the Royal Geographical Society. Mr. Hammond was also director of the American Textbook Publishers Institute and a member of the American Book Publishers Council and the American Library Association.
He was a director of the Hospital Center at Orange and the Yorkwood Savings and Loan in Maplewood and a director and chairman of the Maplewood Library from 1962 until 1972. He was also a director and chairman of the Maplewood Bank and Trust Co., director and vice president of the Fraentzel Foundation in Maplewood, and a member of the Kiwanis Club in Maplewood, the Maplewood Country Club and the Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield.
Born in Orange, Mr. Hammond moved to Maplewood 81 years ago.
Surviving are his wife, Patricia; daughters, Beth Lynn Steele and Wendie Masterson; a son, C. Dean III; eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
http://www.nj.com/obituaries/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/114966928144020.xml&coll=1
Herbert S. Pierce of Millburn, Hammond Map chief cartographer
Thursday, June 01, 2006
A memorial service for Herbert S. Pierce, 87, of Millburn will be at 5 oclock Tuesday evening in the Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, 2122 Millburn Ave., Maplewood.
Mr. Pierce, who died Friday in Overlook Hospital, Summit, was the head of the cartography department at the Hammond Map Co. in Maplewood, where he worked for 50 years before retiring in 1991.
He graduated from the Newark College of Fine Arts and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
Born in Newark, Mr. Pierce lived in Millburn for many years.
http://www.nj.com/obituaries/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/114915140470510.xml&coll=1
probably don't really want to know all of the sordid details about how I've got a girlfriend (Mon Dieu!), a tenant, and a whole bunch of other banal details about my life. My work has also been somewhat boring as well...I bought a new hard drive last week...From early 1991 to late 1992, I worked at Hammond Map Company in Maplewood, NJ. Caleb "CD" Hammond was the Patriarch of the company that his son Dean and daughter-in-law Kathy ran. Herb Pierce was head of the Drafting Department that was taken over by one of my early mentors, William "Bill" Abel. Both passed away last week and my friend and former coworker Web sent out the obits. Chuck Lees, quoted in one of the articles, was my former boss in the editorial department where I spent most of my career there:
As you may already know, C.D. Hammond and Herb Pierce died within a week of each other. Below is an article from yesterday’s Star-Ledger about Hammond, Inc., followed by their obituaries. A couple of things I noticed……it’s amusing that Helen requested anonymity; she shouldn’t have to worry about such stuff at her age…..and are Dean and Beth Irish twins?
Please forward this to those who may be interested…..I’ve lost the emails of several of our former cartographic comrades.
For decades on end, they drew the world
Sunday, June 11, 2006
BY JUDY PEET
Star-Ledger Staff
People paying their respects to Herbert Pierce, 87, and Caleb Hammond, 90, as they lay next to each other in a Maplewood funeral home last week were saying goodbye not just to old friends, but to an era.
For half a century, the two men worked side by side, making some of the best maps in the world at what was called one of the nicest companies in Maplewood.
Together, they took the company founded by Mr. Hammond's grandfather in 1900 and built it into a cartographic giant, second only to Rand McNally in Chicago. At the same time, Mr. Hammond created a workplace where family mattered and few employees left.
"It was a sweet little company," recalled Mr. Hammond's daughter, Beth Lynn Steele, 63. "I'm really sad that it's gone."
There are still Hammonds and there is still a Hammond World Atlas Corp., but the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Langenscheidt Publishing Group, a German publishing behemoth whose other acquisitions include Hagstrom Maps, American Map Corp., Berlitz and the World Almanac.
In its heyday in the early 1960s, Hammond employed 120 draftsmen, artists and researchers at its comfortable, paneled offices an easy walk from the quaint Maplewood village center.
Now the maps are reproduced by a half-dozen computer technicians at a generic office complex in Springfield (and reviewers say the quality of the maps remains high). The only person left who remembers Hammond of the old days is an elderly secretary.
She won't tell her age or name because she is afraid Langenscheidt might notice she reached retirement age when Jimmy Carter was still in office. She stays, she says, because she always liked the job and she's still good at it.
Most of the employees, however, left in the mid-1990s, when "it became obvious that the company could no longer survive," said former editor in chief Chuck Lees.
"What is ironic is that we were the company that was responsible for the demise of beautiful, handmade paper maps," said Lees, now 73, who was with the company for 40 years before leaving in 1997. "We were a company of old-timers who made ourselves obsolete."
What killed Hammond as a local, family-owned company was computer technology.
For centuries, maps were reproduced the same way: hand-drawn on paper and updated by whatever information was available.
In 1990 at Hammond, for example, keeping maps current still meant relying on researchers with extensive sources including the U.S. Board of Geographical Names, the State Department, the CIA, the United Nations and a Budapest-based organization called Cart Actual.
By that time, Caleb Hammond was chairman of the company board of directors, and his son, C. Dean Hammond, was running operations. The son was determined to jump on the technology bandwagon.
With the help of Mitchell Feigenbaum, the mathematical physicist who developed fractal geometry (the formula that predicts chaos), Dean Hammond developed the world's first digitized world atlas, published in 1992.
It was a work that took five years and millions of dollars to develop. The digital software revolutionized the map world, paving the way for Internet maps. And, admits Dean Hammond, it probably ruined the company.
"We made hand-drawing paper maps archaic," says Hammond, now 63. "We no longer needed or could afford our large staff. Then the Internet and global satellite positioning took over and we weren't really needed at all."
Teetering on insolvency, the company sold out to Langenscheidt in 1999. Hammond, who describes himself as a "map freak, but with gadgets, not paper," said he was "relieved not to deal anymore with the drama of a family business."
"I'll always love maps," said Hammond, who now works as a custom calendar salesman. "But that old world is gone."
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1150000903240730.xml?starledger?obits&coll=1
Caleb Dean Hammond Jr., 90, chairman of family map company
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
A service will be private for Caleb Dean Hammond Jr., 90, of Maplewood, a third-generation map company executive, who died Monday in Overlook Hospital in Summit. Arrangements are by the Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, Maplewood.
Mr. Hammond was chairman of the board of C.S. Hammond Inc. in Maplewood, a publisher of maps and atlases, where he started as a production manager in 1939. He retired in 1998 from the company, which was established by his grandfather, C.S. Hammond, in 1900. Earlier, Mr. Hammond was a sales engineer for Texaco in Port Arthur, Texas, from 1937 until 1939.
He received his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 1937 from Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where he was the football manager in 1936. He was also a member of the Skull, a senior society, and the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. From 1978 to 1999, Mr. Hammond served as a trustee at WPI, which in 1992 honored him with its Robert N. Goddard Award in recognition of outstanding professional achievement.
Mr. Hammond served as a lieutenant in the Coast Guard Reserve from 1942 until 1945 as an engineering officer on the APA14, USS Hunter Liggett, a manned combat transport.
He was a member of the American Geographical Society and the Publishers Lunch Club, both in New York City, and the Royal Geographical Society. Mr. Hammond was also director of the American Textbook Publishers Institute and a member of the American Book Publishers Council and the American Library Association.
He was a director of the Hospital Center at Orange and the Yorkwood Savings and Loan in Maplewood and a director and chairman of the Maplewood Library from 1962 until 1972. He was also a director and chairman of the Maplewood Bank and Trust Co., director and vice president of the Fraentzel Foundation in Maplewood, and a member of the Kiwanis Club in Maplewood, the Maplewood Country Club and the Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield.
Born in Orange, Mr. Hammond moved to Maplewood 81 years ago.
Surviving are his wife, Patricia; daughters, Beth Lynn Steele and Wendie Masterson; a son, C. Dean III; eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
http://www.nj.com/obituaries/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/114966928144020.xml&coll=1
Herbert S. Pierce of Millburn, Hammond Map chief cartographer
Thursday, June 01, 2006
A memorial service for Herbert S. Pierce, 87, of Millburn will be at 5 oclock Tuesday evening in the Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, 2122 Millburn Ave., Maplewood.
Mr. Pierce, who died Friday in Overlook Hospital, Summit, was the head of the cartography department at the Hammond Map Co. in Maplewood, where he worked for 50 years before retiring in 1991.
He graduated from the Newark College of Fine Arts and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
Born in Newark, Mr. Pierce lived in Millburn for many years.
http://www.nj.com/obituaries/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-19/114915140470510.xml&coll=1
Monday, May 15. 2006
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