By Garry Blanson
The next time you open your refrigerator, you can say thank you to Frederick McKinley Jones.
He was born on May 17, 1893, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother was Black, and his father was White. His family had many financial problems, which led to Frederick being sent to Kentucky to live with a priest for about two years or so.
Next, he decided to go back to Cincinnati. Once he got to Cincinnati, he worked odd jobs here and there. One of his jobs was working as a janitor. Although he held the position as a janitor, Frederick knew himself to be much more than a lowly janitor.
The owner of the shop saw his value and made him shop Foreman. Frederick was ambitious, so he decided to leave the shop and secure his engineering license in Minnesota.
When the town he was living in decided to build a radio station, they called on Frederick to build the transmitter. Also, a local businessman by the name of Joseph A Numero hired Frederick to improve the sound machines for his company. In the the1930s, Frederick designed and patented a portable air-cooling unit for trucks carrying perishable food. Additionally, he decided to enter a business partnership with Joseph A Numero. They called their company, “The U.S. Thermo Control Company.”
During WWll, the U.S. military relied heavily on Frederick’s air-cooling invention and the U.S. Thermo Control Company.
In 1991, President George HW Bush awarded the National Medal of Technology “Posthumously” to Frederick McKinley Jones and Joseph A Numero (their wives received their awards at a ceremony held in the Whitehouse Rose Gardens). He was the first Negro to have received this award. On February 21, 1961, he died of lung cancer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In closing, I think that we might need to pay “greater attention” to our Black Youth who are deciding to drop out of school. Who knows, they might become the next Frederick McKinley Jones?
