FRED
KUMMER:
THE MAN BEHIND THE VISION By Mary Helen Stoltz, mhstoltz@mst.edu
Original photo of Fred Kummer courtesy of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 10, 1972
IF
you consider the origins of Fred Kummer’s business savvy, it’s no wonder innovation and entrepreneurship were central to his vision for the Kummer Institute at Missouri S&T.
In high school, while holding down jobs as a runner on Wall Street and for Macy’s department store, Kummer, CE’55, and a classmate ran a printing press to print menus for area restaurants out of the basement of the New York City hotel where his family lived and his father worked as an engineer. Kummer’s engineering background was inspired by his father, but his interest in construction began in Rolla. When he arrived on campus to begin his civil engineering coursework, a local construction project was underway. “They were building an addition to the high school in Rolla, and I went to work for a man by the name of Powell, who was the inspector for William B. Ittner architectural firm out of St. Louis,” Kummer said in a 1994 Alumnus Magazine interview. “I did all kinds of miscellaneous drafting and all sorts of other things for Mr. Powell.”
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