The Association of Diesel Specialists announced it is mourning the passing away of Herb Wittersheim, the organization’s first president and an honorary member.
Wittersheim started in the diesel industry upon graduation from high school in Chicago in 1939 as a machinist apprentice with Diesel Engineering and Manufacturing, known as DEMCO, located in Chicago. While under the apprenticeship, he was awarded a mechanical engineering scholarship by DEMCO to attend the Amour Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology), where he attended two nights a week and weekends while working 45-50 hours per week.
After being discharged from the Army at Fort Eustis, Va., he established a Diesel Fuel Injection company headquartered in Norfolk, Va., and with branches in Salem and Richmond, Va., and Raleigh, N.C.
Wittersheim collaborated with Henry Ortner from American Bosch among other early leaders in the diesel industry to establish the Association of Diesel Specialists whose first meeting was held at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago in 1956. There were 21 attendees in the first meeting.
According to the association, he never missed a single annual meeting or board of directors’ meeting.
