Ernst D. van Löben Sels

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Ernst Diedrik van Löben Sels (born September 30, 1879 in Oakland , died September 12, 1965 in Berkeley ); also van Loben Sels; was an American engineer and investor.

Life

Ernst van Löben Sels was the oldest of five children of Pieter Justus van Löben Sels and Adele Virginia de Fremery. His father is from Zutphen in the Netherlands and his mother from San Francisco. The mother's parents were also from the Netherlands. In 1909 van Löben Selts married Sarah Elanor Slate from Berkeley. She was the daughter of a physics professor at the University of Berkeley . The marriage remained childless.

After school, Ernst van Löben Sels studied engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and at Cornell University . In 1917 he became a captain in the US Army and was deployed in the engineer forces. He was involved in the battles in St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive .

After the war he worked as an engineer until his father's death in 1927. Subsequently, he managed a farm in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta until the late 1930s. However, since agriculture did not satisfy him in the long term, he began to get into the investment business.

He mainly specialized in investments in railway companies. In 1951 he became a member of the supervisory board of Bangor and Aroostook Railroad and in 1958 chairman of the supervisory board (Chairman of the Board) of this company. After founding the Bangor and Aroostook Corporation holding company in 1960, he also became its first chairman. After the merger of this company to Bangor Punta Alegre Sugar Corporation in 1964, he resigned from this post, but remained chairman of the railway company until his death.

Ernst van Löben Sels uses his financial resources for philanthropic purposes. He supported financially weak students so that they could complete their studies and his wife worked, among other things, in looking after mothers with children. During the Second World War, the couple took care of soldiers on vacation. One of these soldiers later became his personal lawyer and organized the establishment of the "Ernst D. van Loben Sels-Eleanor Slate van Loben Sels Charitable Foundation" (today: van Löben Sels / RembeRock Foundation) from hereditary assets of around $ 2.6 million . The foundation continues to support organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area with around $ 2 million annually to a wide variety of non-profit organizations.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Financial notes. (1958, Dec 05). Daily Boston Globe (1928-1960) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/845651961?accountid=11056
  2. ↑ Des Moines Tribune from Des Moines, Iowa on April 27, 1966 7 . In: Newspapers.com . ( newspapers.com [accessed April 24, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Van Löben Sels, Ernst D.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Löben Sels, Ernst Diedrik (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer and investor
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1965
Place of death Berkeley