Archives West Finding Aid

Donald V. Redfern devoted his active, concentrated life to numerous causes, from business, to civic affairs, to charity. On one level this collection assembles important material on a wide variety of topics and institutions, each important in its own right. On another, it illustrates the complex interactions of numerous commitments within one man’s life. The boundaries between Redfern’s concerns often blurred, or never existed, and this collection provides a lens to the complicated interactions between them. Redfern’s endeavors illustrate a case of science and technology, business and industry, government affairs, environmental quality, and benevolent causes all brewing together in one person’s life during the period between the Korean War and the disruptive turbulence of the late ‘60s.

Redfern was born in Yakima in 1915, and attended the UW, graduating in 1939 with a B.S. in chemical engineering. A year later, he joined American-Marietta as a control chemist, and began his steady rise in the company. He eventually attained the position of general manager of the Adhesive, Resin and Chemical Division, and company vice-president.

Forest-product businesses are the largest buyers of adhesives and resins, and A-M supplied the U.S. and Canadian plywood, hardboard and paper industry. Redfern’s association with forest products led to his tenure as president of Keep Washington Green from 1961 to 1962. The organization began in 1940 as a non-profit corporation dedicated to reducing the number of fires set by humans in Washington forests and ranges, and supported by the forest industry, individuals and the state government. KWG explicitly declared in a fact sheets that it “is not just another ‘Good Cause’. It is a tool devised by the forest industry to combate [sic] the forest fire problem.” Redfern also was a director and the president of Greenacres, Inc., a firm specializing in natural resource evolution and development. In addition to consultation, Greenacres became involved more directly in resource extraction through investment and subsidiary corporations. Among these were Mineralands, Inc., a mining corporation of which Redfern was a director (a young Slade Gorton served as its secretary); and Chaparano Development Corp, a timber concern operating out of Chile. Greenacres was but one of many business interests Redfern became involved in outside of A-M. He invested in and served on the board of directors of Temperglas Company, a company launched in the late 1950s to manufacture laminated fiberglass products. In July, 1957, the directors appointed Redfern manager pro tem of the company, giving him administrative control over the company’s day-to-day operation. Despite painting itself as “a small new company with future potential unlimited,”

Temperglas floundered financially. A little more than a month after becoming manager, Redfern angrily resigned from both this position and from the board of directors, adamantly protesting the other directors’ handling of company affairs. He berated them for the “neglect on your part to secure competent management.” Lamiglas Company absorbed the troubled Temperglas the following year.

Redfern also participated actively in business organizations. He held membership in the Association of Washington Industries, a non-profit organization then representing 1,200 business and industrial firms statewide. He won election to AWI’s 60-person Board of Directors in 1962. The goals of the organization, as stated in a 1962 pamphlet, were “to seek for business and industry’s views at all levels of public opinion. . . to work for maximum efficiency in government with an absence of excessive and unreasonable restrictions, regulations and tax burdens in order that Washington employers may meet the challenge of creating needed new jobs for the state’s expanding population.” Additionally, in 1961 Redfern was elected a vice-chairman of the Board of Directors of the Seattle Area Industrial Council (SAIC). Four years earlier, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the City, King County and the Port jointly organized the SAIC. Prior to 1957, each of the four groups were pursuing their own industrial policies, but they perceived for both logistical and financial reasons the need for a broadened, cooperative program. The Chamber of Commerce provided most of the financial support. The SAIC’s basic assignments were to assist in the expansion of local industry, and to attract new industry to the area; in general, “to lead the way toward a sound industrial future with sufficient job opportunities for our growing population.” It attempted to carry out its mandate through research on area economic conditions and trends; sponsoring conferences, promotional luncheons, inventors’ shows, including active participation in the 1962 World’s Fair; providing consulting service to business; and working with state agencies and other regional industrial organizations.

Seattle’s biggest civic project during the 1960s was the 1962 World’s Fair, and Redfern was involved. The state legislature created the non-profit Century 21 Exposition, Inc. in 1957 to manage and promote the Fair. One of many issues the corporation faced was to determine future use of the Federal Building, which during the Fair housed the United States Science Pavilion. Redfern served on the committee charged with determining the structure’s fate. He urged the committee not to loose sight of its possible uses in connection with trade interests and industrial research and development. He also expressed his concern that the building should not become a heavy burden on the public budget. (Ultimately, it became home to the Pacific Science Center). He also was on the planning committee for the 13th National Science Fair -- International, held under the auspices of the World’s Fair.

At the same time Seattle was planning and then hosting this exhibition for the world, its leaders wrangled inconclusively over the coarse but inescapably consequential issue of its own trash. In 1955, a City Engineer’s report had warned that “Seattle’s garbage and refuse disposal problem is rapidly becoming critical.” The problem had become acute by the middle of the 1960s, and the attempt to solve it inaugurated the “Great Garbage Debate.” In April, 1964 Seattle mayor J.D. Braman set up the Seattle Garbage Review Committee, including Redfern and chaired by Harold Wessman, the dean of the University of Washington’s School of Engineering, to review and recommend on the various bids for the disposal of the 14,000 tons of trash produced daily in the city. The committee rejected incineration, the solution initially proposed by the City Engineer’s office, for both cost and air-quality reasons. Ultimately, the committee recommended the construction of two “transfer points” at which collection trucks would dump their load onto trailers. A trucking firm, contracted by the city, would then haul the refuse to an out-of-town dump site. Predictably, whenever the city proposed a dump site, nearby residents reacted angrily. At the last moment, Braman and the city Council rejected the committee’s recommendation in favor of the “total disposal” option offered by Puget Service Company, which promised to get rid of the garbage however it saw fit. By accepting the controversial “total disposal” bid from Puget, the city disposed of its garbage problem without having to buy trailers or find sites, although opponents charged that the city bought these advantages through higher costs to the rate-payer. With the acceptance of the Puget bid, the Committee’s purpose ended, and on February 10th, 1965, Braman discharged it, apologizing that “it is unfortunate that the sincere, dedicated well-meaning work of the committee became involved in the controversy.”

Redfern’s civic participation extended to state and federal concerns. In 1949, Governor Arthur Langlie requested the formation of the Pollution Control Commission in response to growing concern about the air pollution, although no legislation came out of Olympia until the 1957 Clear Air Act. Four years later, Governor Albert Rosellini appointed the first Washington State Air Pollution Control Board, and included Redfern among its members. The Board, operating under the auspices of the Department of Health, had a small budget and worked primarily as an advisory group during Redfern’s tenure. (It disbanded in 1970, when the newly-created Department of Ecology assumed its responsibilities). On the federal level, Redfern was appointed in 1960 to the Bonneville Regional Advisory Council, which the Bonneville Power Administration had created in 1944. The council was made up of community leaders, and by 1960 was divided into three Area Councils -- Portland, Seattle, and Spokane. Its official purpose was to foster a close working relationship between the BPA and the people of the Pacific Northwest; to provide the BPA counsel from regional leaders on the problems and interests of the Northwest as they relate to power; and to create a channel through which interested citizens and organizations could obtain an understanding of the BPA’s policies and activities. Ultimately, the BPA intended the councils to serve as a bridge between itself and regional communities and interests. The councils possessed no legal authority, since regulations stipulated that “any determination of action to be taken, based in whole or in part on. . . [the councils’] advice shall be formulated, or approved, by a full-time salaried officer or employee of the Department [of the Interior].” All members of the councils served not just as individuals, but as representatives of specific interests. Redfern sat as the representative of the chemical industry through his affiliation with the Puget Sound Section of the American Chemical Society. Among the opinions Redfern expressed was his belief that the BPA maintained low electrical rates in spite of sound business judgment. “I feel that we are living in a ‘Fool’s Paradise,’” he wrote to BPA Administrator Charles F. Luce in 1961, “if we continue to apply low power rates in view of an evermounting deficient. I further feel this can have a negative effect on private efforts to produce power by other means. It seems to me that a realistic approach requires a full discussion to raise rates and reduce the operating loss of Bonneville Power.”

Redfern found time to participate actively in charity concerns as well. He sat on the Salvation Army Development Board, and became chairman of its “Leadership Committee” in 1961. The Salvation Army’s goals were “to preach the Gospel, to disseminate Christian truth, and to rehabilitate -- spiritually, morally, emotionally, and physically -- all those who come under its influence.” When Redfern joined, the Development Board counseled the Salvation Army on its entire program of physical and financial development, and supervised a $1,000,000 fund-raising campaign to meet “critical needs.” By chairing of the “Leadership Committee,” a subordinate advisory board in the Salvation Army’s highly hierarchical structure, Redfern apparently met the Salvation Army’s stated criteria for division chairman as “an aggressive, dedicated individual capable of enlisting dedicated and interested leaders of high standing and personal stature.” Redfern also devoted time to the United Good Neighbors of King County. The predecessor to the United Way of King County, UGN solicited support for dozens of local services and several national health and welfare causes. (It would become the United Way of King County in 1971 when its national umbrella organization, the United Way of America, became more of an active movement, rather than simply a service center linking autonomous local programs under a confusing diversity of names). Redfern joined in the mid-1950s as a member of the “Advanced Gifts Division.” He contacted corporations directly to seek donations on UGN’s behalf, and also lead the push within American-Marietta to collect funds for the charitable agency. He assigned an A-M employee to work part-time as part of the “Loan Executive Program” when the financial situation of the company allowed, and exhorted his fellow employees to donate. By 1964, he had risen to the position of “Lt. General” in the agency, heading a group within the Industrial Division. That year, his group managed to collect over $125,000 worth of corporate contributions, well above its goal of $116,308.

Redfern died June 29th, 1965 from cancer.