One Man's Quest to Keep You Safe: Dale Seiberling and Clean-In-Place Innovation

By Dale A Seiberling and Bonnie B Daneker

In this part-memoir, part food-science discussion, Dale Seiberling and Bonnie Daneker illuminate the hidden story behind the safe production of many of the foods, drinks, and medicines we consume today. Full of fun anecdotes and relationship profiles, this work also includes many technical drawings, descriptions, and photographs to assist in und

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale A Seiberling
• Release date: Feb 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578572758

Book preview

— Chapter One —

Son of an Ohio Dairy Producer-

Processor-Distributor

Birth to 1946

On approximately 200 acres of land south of US 224 and east of the Medina County-Summit County line at an intersection called Western Star, my father was involved in a farm and dairy business with my grandfather and two uncles. In the early 1920s, they had approximately 60 Guernsey cows. All four of the Seiberling men shared in milking the cows twice daily and moving the milk in 10-gallon cans on a cart from the barn to the dairy plant for pasteurization. (The plant was in a brick building across the driveway from my grandfather’s house.) They also shared the tasks of pumping the newly pasteurized milk over a surface cooler board before bottling for delivery, then cleaning the equipment.

My dad had started high school in Wadsworth, Ohio in 1913 and graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1918. That same year, after the farming and milking operations were fully developed, my grandfather and my dad started a retail milk business. While Dad was delivering milk, my grandfather and my two uncles would handle all the farming tasks relating to plowing, planting, cultivating, making hay, cutting and shocking oats and wheat, and threshing. They raised 15 to 20 pigs for pork, sausage, and bacon for use by the four families, and butchering was a fall event requiring 2 or 3 days plus meat smoking, which took longer. Chickens were also part of the livestock, and were cared for by my grandmother.

Figure 1.1 Seiberling Family Homes – Western Star, Ohio. Late 1970s.

In the mornings, my father would assist with the early milking, and then he would load the milk wagon pulled by Nellie, his ever-reliable horse, with the bottles. Next, he would liberally ice the cases filled with milk (except in the winter months when it was cold enough outside), and head for Wadsworth, about three miles west on old US 224.

Dad would deliver fresh milk to families there and pick up the empty bottles from the prior delivery. I have memories of joining my dad on that milk route occasionally, before the age of four. On one street after another in Wadsworth, he would leave the wagon with two eight-bottle wire carriers in his hands, and head for the house, leaving a bottle or two on most porches. Nellie would move down the street to a destination already known to her and wait for him to come back to the wagon to refill the carriers. This process took all day. Dad would get home for an early family dinner before the evening milking and the even later bottle washing, pasteurizing, and filling operations, followed by the evening cleaning of processing equipment.

Milk was milk in those days, or technically, mixed herd milk. There were no special designations such as 2.0%, 1.0%, or 0.5% butterfat, like we have today. The only composition requirement to call a beverage milk was that it contained greater than the minimum butterfat level of 3.5%. That was the standard requirement. Of course, mixed herd milk (also called whole milk) from the cow contained more butterfat than that.

To produce standardized milk, or to bottle coffee cream (12.0% fat) or whipping cream (35.0% fat), it was necessary for the dairymen to separate warm (90°F) milk to produce pasteurized skim milk and pasteurized cream in small quantities. This was relatively straightforward to do in a can, as the cream rose to the top and skim stayed at the bottom. Larger dairies could use powered separators and discharge the skim and cream to cans or even small processing vats. One hundred gallons of 4.0% milk would yield ninety gallons of skim milk and ten gallons of 40% cream.

The skim milk would be used to standardize (or decrease the fat in) whole milk to regulatory requirements. The cream was blended with pasteurized whole milk, increasing the fat content to produce coffee cream or whipping cream.

The Beginnings of Willow Brook Dairy

In 1925, my father purchased land, 120 feet wide and 280 feet long, from my grandfather and built a house on old US 224, at what is now 4236 Greenwich Road, and then married. My father actually met my mother-to-be, Otillia Schultz, when delivering milk in Wadsworth. My grandfather’s youngest sister, Bertha, had married Irvin Young, a rising Wadsworth industrialist and one of my dad’s customers. My mother was working for the Youngs as a housekeeper and babysitter when they met. A short courtship then marriage ensued, and then I came along in 1927.

When I was about four, something happened between my grandfather and my father, which was forever to remain a mystery. I never learned what caused the split, but it caused my father to start his own business continuing under the name he owned: Willow Brook Dairy. I continued to have great relationships with my grandparents, uncles, and aunts; Dad and his dad and siblings ultimately became sociable again.

As a result of this, though, in a very exciting early memory, I watched my dad and a couple of his friends remove the ammonia refrigeration system (which he apparently owned) from the C.E. Seiberling dairy and transport it to a building on his land. The removal happened in pieces, as the assembled system was far too heavy to pull up the steps. First came the motor, then the ammonia receiver, next the flywheel, then the compressor, and finally the base on which all those parts were mounted. I enjoyed studying the various parts, trying to understand what they were and how each worked.

Figure 1.2 Willow Brook Dairy truck with my grandfather’s home behind and his dairy plant to the right.

Prior to moving out the refrigeration system came the construction of a concrete block building about 5 car or truck bays in length and perhaps 30 feet deep, positioned tightly in the southwest corner of our property. Two of those bays became garage space, but the rest were dedicated to dairy operations. The refrigeration equipment they had just moved, a 10-horsepower boiler, an ice cream freezer, and a hardening room, soon occupied the new building on the back of my dad’s property, and a small ice cream store was constructed on the northeast corner of his land with parking along a stone wall parallel to the highway. Eight to ten cars could be parked in front of and in the drive along the store, and a few more would fit on the north side of US 224. Dad attracted customers with nickel cones, sundaes, and all the buttermilk you could drink for a nickel. He operated Willow Brook from 1930 to 1952, and it was here that I learned about the basics of things mechanical and electrical. (See Figure 1.3)

Figure 1.3 My sisters with me on a lamppost at Willow Brook Dairy Store; Mid-1930s.

Dad also ran a business to loan ice cream cabinets to drugstores, grocery stores, and gas stations who in turn sold Willow Brook ice cream. Shortly after the buildings were complete, he purchased a 100-gallon pasteurizer, a surface cooler, and a 2-valve filler, and went into the milk distribution business in Barberton, where he would not be in competition with my grandfather, by purchasing milk from nearby farmers.

All these changes occurred between 1931 and 1933. My dad hired a handyman to help with construction and milk processing. Dad made the ice cream and delivered dairy products during the day, and the employee took care of the other operational responsibilities. When the Willow Brook Dairy opened, my mother provided customer service and local high school girls were employed as babysitters, later becoming store employees. (I had the privilege of meeting the remaining worker, Betty Clapper, now 98, at the Norton Alumni Banquet in 2019.)

My sister Jane was born a year and a day after me. There were no kids our age near our home, so we were playmates. When I was six, my dad had taught me to run a hand-cranked jigsaw. I borrowed my mother’s cookie cutters and used them as patterns on half-inch clear pine, cut the shapes of animals out with the jigsaw, and painted them to look like real animals. We gave them to an organization so that, despite the Depression, some kids had new toys. When news of this spread around Wadsworth, the local Banner-Press published a story about it. That was my first time in the newspaper.

Time for School

My introduction to public education came in September 1933. My first school was the larger of two buildings that sat on a site adjacent to land known as the Mill Lot on my grandfather’s farm. The Mill Lot was the northwest end of a creek bed that ran southeast across the 200-acre farm. Outside, there was a well with a hand pump and a couple of two-hole restroom facilities – one labeled Boys and one labeled Girls – near the fence separating the Mill Lot from the schoolyard. Immediately inside the front door of the school was the cloakroom, with hooks for our overclothes, coats, and space for boots.

The teacher was Mrs. Hantsche, and she taught all eight grades. The building was heated in the winter by a large, cast-iron, pot-bellied stove in the center of the one-room school. Mrs. Hantsche’s desk was front and center in the large room. A recitation bench sat on the left side of the room when viewing her desk. My father had told me to choose a desk near the center of the row behind the recitation bench, which he considered to be the best learning spot in Summit County. His rationale was this: I would benefit from listening to the recitations of all subjects for all eight grades. I did, and he was right.

The student population in the Western Star district increased during the year, and this made it necessary to also use a slightly smaller school building directly east of the one we had been in. It was organized in the same manner but only for grades 1-4, with our teacher being Mrs. Sweet. My sister Jane now joined my class, and we both received instructions from our dad to sit at a desk directly behind the recitation bench.

The learning opportunities in the second grade were only half as good as the ones in the first grade, because the schoolroom had no students older than fourth grade; in other words, Jane and I had lost the recitation periods of grades 5-8. However, I learned to read very well in the first grade, and our parents purchased a set of Compton’s Encyclopedia at this time. I was an avid reader of the first volume, book A, which featured Airplanes and Automobiles, as well as the huge Dyke’s Automobile and Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia, Eleventh Edition. Copyrighted in 1920, Dyke’s included supplements on the Ford® and Packard cars, airplanes, and the famous Liberty 12® airplane engine. This edition also dealt with trucks, tractors, and motorcycles. This book was more than 940 pages, and I have kept the book for my grandson.

First Dairy Processing Employment

During second and third grades, it was my job to wash milk bottles from my dad’s early milk route. My first responsibility after my half-mile walk home from school was to start a fire in our 10-horsepower vertical boiler, then build up 5-10 psi steam pressure to wash the dirty bottles collected from Dad’s route.

The bottle washing station consisted of two rectangular, galvanized steel laundry tubs situated on a support to place them about waist high for a man. A quarter-horsepower motor was mounted behind the wash tub, powering a rotating scrub brush fixed to the end of the motor shaft with a brass bushing. The tub was two thirds full of water, heated with steam to the maximum temperature my hands could stand, then one pound of alkaline cleaner was added. The second tub containing the sanitizing solution was filled with cold water to which a powdered chlorine sanitizer was added. (See Figure 1.4)

Figure 1.4 Washing bottles at Willow Brook Dairy; Sketch by Col. Walter Maston, brother-in-law; Late Spring 1984.

The process was simple; even a seven- or eight-year-old boy like me could do it. Standing on an inverted milk crate, I removed the 12 quarts, 20 pints, or 30 half-pints from one carrying case at a time and pushed them into the hot water to fill and soak. Next, I used the nearby steam hose to steam the inside, and especially the bottom, of the case from which the bottles had been removed. I then dumped the water out of each bottle and pushed it onto the rotating brush to scrub the inside and outside. Those bottles that were returned with partially dried milk still in them required special attention, and I kept at it until they were cleaned. Each brush-scrubbed bottle was then placed in the chlorine tub to rinse and sanitize. Those in the chlorine solution were removed and placed upside down into the newly-cleaned case to drain before filling.

After the first case was completed, the second case of dirty bottles was transferred to the hot tub. That is how it was done, one case at a time, to wash the bottles required for approximately 100 gallons of milk, which we batch pasteurized and bottled every evening after dinner. Fortunately, most of the milk was bottled in quarts, so we could bottle 3 gallons per case of 12 quarts. (See Figure 1.5)

Figure 1.5 Bottling milk at Willow Brook Dairy.

Other Farm Work and Fun

From about age 11, I also worked for my uncles in the summer, assisting with the hay harvest by driving a team or a tractor on steel lugs with a hay loader attached to the wagon. I would pull the wagon from the field to the barn, or pull the hay from the wagon up into the mow.

When I was 12, my father purchased a set of Firestone® wheels and axles for my use in designing and constructing a soap box racer. This project kept me busy from early spring till August. Akron, Ohio was the home of the Soap Box Derby® at Derby Downs, adjacent to the Rubber Bowl on the east side of Akron Airport. I won only my first heat, but the total experience was fun, and the awards dinner at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron was a very special treat for a 12-year-old country boy.

Shortly after the Soap Box Derby, an uncle on my mother’s side gave me a one-cylinder engine that he had removed from his wife’s washing machine. I altered my soap box racer by removing most of what would be considered the trunk and then installed the engine with a jack shaft and three pulleys plus a shifter lever on the outside of the body, in front of the driver’s seat. It was ready for real action! US 224 may not have been the best place in the world to be driving a small vehicle made of wood, but I managed to have a lot of fun on this busy road with my racer.

The Early Teen Years

When I turned 13, my father decided I could do more useful things than play with my racer and model planes (both scale and free flight). He needed assistance in caring for the ice cream business, specifically the compressors on the four-, six-, and eight-hole ice cream cabinets located around Wadsworth and Barberton that were filled with Willow Brook Dairy ice cream.

First, he taught me to drive the 1939 Plymouth® pickup truck. Then, while I was slowly developing my driving skills by hauling milk on country roads, he taught me to service the low-pressure remotely located condensing units that kept the ice cream cold. He did not have much time to talk specifically about the thermodynamic properties of refrigerants referred to as entropy and enthalpy (which I would later learn in college), but he taught me how to replace a rotary seal on the compressor crankshaft and a valve plate on the compressor head, as well as the purpose of expansion valves (which were later replaced by capillary tubes in subsequent generations of sealed systems). He also taught me how to install the service gauges, pump the system down, do the necessary mechanical work, add refrigerant as needed, and purge the system of air. More importantly, I learned to do this for systems running with sulfur dioxide, methyl chloride, and Freon 12®, and how to tell one from the others with my nose. Soon, I was doing some of the service work on those types of units located on the fringes of the two cities, accessible primarily by country roads.

As the years passed, we built additions to the ice cream store to house more hardening cabinets and counter freezers, then relocated the milk processing facility to the new structure. Just before World War II, I assisted my father in building an 18-stall dairy barn adjacent and connected to the original structure on the back of the lot. We began producing much of our own milk at the start of the war, when the draft took away the hired help as I was starting high school. The presence of 18 newly bought cows on the property changed our daily workload substantially, and with the hired hands in the army, I took on greater responsibility. Now, older and stronger, and having developed adequate driving skills to engage with increased traffic, I began driving the pickup truck to do many tasks. (See Figure 1.7)

Figure 1.7 Trucking to and from Willow Brook Dairy; Sketch by Col. Walter Maston, brother-in-law.

I became the primary user of the pickup, also hauling bales of hay and straw and bags of grain from Wadsworth to our barn. My dad still used it occasionally to deliver and pickup milk. I would haul coal from Wadsworth for the house furnace and the dairy boiler. Weekends were not days off on a farm, so on Saturdays I moved the milk byproduct (cow manure) to the gardens of families generally within five miles, who were eager to have it at $5 per load.

The oldest truck soon wore out. In the short period of one week, in the driveway with its front wheels on concrete blocks and a little coaching from my father, I learned how to overhaul an L-head 6-cylinder engine. I got the rod bearings too tight the first time, but fixing it was mandatory with the manure pile getting bigger. I had to drop the oil pan and readjust those bearings, which cost me another day’s effort. Knowing that a cow worked 24 hours per day (365 days per year) and that she had to be fed and those faucets drained at least twice each day, reminded me that we all had to keep the rest of the operation running, and I learned how to keep our two trucks and a car maintained during the first part of World War II.

The Final High School Years

In those days, I would hear a single, loud Dale! at about 4:30 a.m., waking me from dead slumber to help with the morning duties. When I heard him, I knew my dad was already on the way to the barn, which he was, 365 days a year. My first task was to start a fire in the boiler in the dairy plant, and then go to the barn. By 5:00 a.m., Dad had milked half of the cows and would complete the milking while I cleaned the stables, put fresh bedding under the cows, put grain and hay in the mangers, and in the winter made sure that none of the water cups had frozen overnight, all in 35 to 40 minutes. Then, we added the morning milk just drawn to the evening milk already in the pasteurizer, which had been cooled overnight by well water.

Between the ages of 14 and 17, since I had grown bigger and stronger, I was able to wash all the required bottles in the hour required to heat the milk to 143oF and hold it for 30 minutes. I pasteurized and bottled up to 100 gallons of milk (some purchased from nearby farmers) and cleaned the milk processing equipment while Dad froze ice cream, using purchased ice cream mix.

Following a quick breakfast, he would drop me off at the Norton High School, two and a half miles east, and then continue to deliver milk and ice cream in Barberton and Kenmore.

I played clarinet from fifth grade on and in the high school band, and I lettered in basketball and football in my junior and senior years, but the single most important happening of my teen years occurred in the eighth grade. Our class was divided into two sections alphabetically for the first two weeks. Then, it was reorganized at the beginning of our third week, on the basis of academic interests: general, commercial, or college preparatory. I chose college prep and saw, for the first time, a lovely young woman who had moved to the Norton school district from Barberton. I fell in love with her immediately and decided I would marry her someday. It took nearly four years to convince Jean Folk of my intentions, and six years to make it happen.

Anchors Aweigh

Before that, though, I had to face the draft. I took and passed the Navy Eddy Test, which gave me a deferment to graduate and then enter the Navy Radar Technician training program. This began with the standard six-week boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station north of Chicago. Following a week long leave, I was assigned to the Pre-Radio Materiel School located in the Coast Guard Naval Armory in Michigan City, Indiana. This 400-student program was meant for the specific purpose of obtaining the top 100 students by failing 100 students each of the first, second, and third weeks. I had just made it through when the war in Japan ended with the dropping of the two atomic bombs.

The remaining 100 of us were placed on 3-day leaves on a rotational basis, which left about 30 on the base and enabled 70 to be on liberty nearby. When on base, we scrubbed the garbage cans and scoured the drill hall floor with steel wool. I continued to receive a practical education on the importance of cleaning on safety and health.

About 6 weeks later the decision was reached to continue the training of those who remained by bringing in 300 more and conducting another 4-week program. I survived once again and, following 1-week furlough near the end of the year, was reassigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station for the 12-week primary portion of the program. I survived that also and was then assigned to the Naval Air Station on Ward Island, Corpus Christi, Texas. This 26-week program was for the aviation version of the course. Our instructors were mostly combat veterans, given teaching responsibilities after the first tour of active duty. They enjoyed sharing their observations of navy pilots and their knowledge of experiences both good and bad. This further fueled my lifelong interest in flying and primed me for more learning when I began college at The Ohio State University. I completed this satisfactorily and was then discharged as an Aviation Electronic Technician’s Mate (AETM) 3rd Class.

OVERVIEW:

Producer-Processor-Distributor Dairies

and the Necessity for Cleaning

In the early 1900s family businesses recognized as producer-distributor dairies were the major suppliers of bottled milk. These businesses were located on farms near population centers. Milk from their herds was collected twice daily, generally combined for once-per-day pasteurization and bottling, then delivered by horse and wagon to the retail customer. In the early 1950s, in small markets, 90% of the milk was still delivered to the household, first by horse and carriage, then by truck every other day during and after WWII. The other 10% was sold in stores. Some dairies had expanded, processing milk from multiple producers and beginning to supply retail store outlets. Across the country, tens of thousands of family businesses operated a bottling plant, which included: equipment for washing bottles, a pasteurizer, a surface cooler board, a bottle filler and capper, a sanitary pump, a small boiler to produce steam, a refrigeration system to cool brine, and a refrigerated storage room. Some dairies were arranged on several floor levels to avoid the need for a pump, as pumping affected the cream line development. Gravity flow was preferred, when possible.

Milk has long been recognized as nature’s most perfect food as it contains fat, protein, and carbohydrates in the necessary proportions for human nutrition. Unfortunately, bacteria grow well in milk also, when the temperature is appropriate. Therefore, all dairymen understood the need for pasteurization to kill all pathogenic (disease-producing) organisms, and for cooling to delay the growth of those that survived pasteurization. [More on pasteurization in Chapter 2.] This is why we refrigerate milk, even today.

The surface cooler board in early dairy plants had two sections. Through the top section, well water was used to cool the milk from 143°F to about 70°F. Brine (saltwater), which was cooled to 28oF during the day by the refrigeration system, was pumped through the tubes of the lower section to finish cooling the milk to just above freezing. All equipment used for processing and packaging milk needed to be properly cleaned and sanitized after each period of use.

The product piping system at our dairy, Willow Brook, was quite minimal. The tubing was tinned copper; the male and female ferrules that connected it to fittings were mostly made of nickel alloy installed, on the ends of the tubing using a blow torch and 50/50 lead solder. The fittings (i.e., elbows, tees, and nuts) were all made of nickel alloy as well. Probably less than 40 feet in total length, the piping was rinsed by pumping water from the pasteurizer, through the homogenizer, over the surface cooler, to the filler bowl.

The piping was then disassembled and cleaned by inserting one-inch pipe brushes into the tubing while the other end was immersed in the same tub of alkaline solution used for washing bottles. After that, it was rinsed with cold water from a hose and placed on a small pipe rack to drain. The following morning, it was reassembled with paper gaskets, then about 15 gallons of sodium hypochlorite solution was made up in the second batch pasteurizer and pumped through all the piping by the homogenizer or centrifugal filler supply pump as pasteurization was being completed. The piping was drained by loosening just a couple fittings before starting milk flow to the filler.

This was a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. However, the Producer-Processor-Distributor made it a priority to clean and sanitize equipment to continue production and distribution of healthy, nutritious milk and milk products.

THINGS THAT MATTERED

An Introduction to Aviation: Model Airplanes

At that same time, I began building model airplanes from kits purchased from the Wadsworth hardware store. At age 10, I built a highly detailed scale model of a Howard DGA-9 with doors that opened on both sides, winning first prize in a contest sponsored by the hardware store. The prize was a kit to build a free-flight, gas-powered plane. I built the plane quickly but could not afford to purchase an engine for a couple of years. (See Figure 1.6)

Figure 1.6 First prize winner, scale model contest at age 10.

Knowing my interest in aviation from reading books and building model airplanes, my mother found the funds to arrange for me to have my first airplane ride in a Ford Tri-Motor airplane at Sherman Airport. Our two-story home had a window at the second-floor stairway landing, and from this window it was possible to see the Goodyear Zeppelin® hangar located at Akron Airport about 12 miles to the east. My sisters and I could see the Akron and the Macon dirigibles and the early DC-2® and DC-3® flights into and out of this airport. I remember several occasions on which we drove to the airport and parked to watch the aerial activity. It was very exciting.

We had a chicken coop near the back of the property, and at a young age it was my responsibility to keep the coop cleaned, the chickens fed and watered, and the eggs gathered. For fun, I built a carrier pigeon coop on top of the chicken coop’s roof and raised a flock of homing pigeons. I loved studying their flight. My dad did not have much time for such activity, but occasionally I would ride with him to pick up milk and release a couple of pigeons about two miles from home. True to their nature, they found their way and always got back before we did.

My childhood interest in aviation was a fun hobby, but it grew to be a lifetime competitive advantage in my consulting business.

Figure 1.8 Ten years older in 1946, I was flying U-Control gas-powered model airplanes in Texas.

TECHNICAL SIDEBAR:

Basic Cleaning and Sanitizing Before Clean-In-Place

Before CIP in the early 1950s, all dairy processing equipment was manually cleaned after each period of use, often several times daily. Federal, state, city, and county regulations required that the piping be cleaned following each period of use. Following the reassembly, a cold sanitizing solution, like sodium hypochlorite at 200 parts per million (ppm), was pumped through the piping prior to the product, and then drained.

Processing vats or storage tanks were cleaned from the outside for small vessels or by entering larger tanks through a manway with the bucket, brush, and hose. Tanks were limited to 8 feet in diameter, the height an average person could reach to scrub with an 18-inch brush. Most of the soil removal was by brushing, which was quite variable in its effectiveness.

The piping systems were all made with take-down construction and were not really systems but rather a lot of piping on a sanitary storage rack consisting of 10-foot lengths of tubing, shorter lines for special purposes, and elbows, tees, and manually-operated plug-type valves. The processing employees assembled the piping to establish a path from wherever the product was to wherever it had to go with the use of paper gaskets. The piping was mostly self-supported by the equipment it was connected to with occasional hangers or supports along the path. A typical transfer line might be 10-30 feet in length, seldom more than 50. This tubing and its fittings were generally 1.5 or 2 inches in diameter to handle transfer capacities of perhaps 10 to 50 gallons per minute (gpm). All sanitary piping was disassembled, manually washed and rinsed, then reassembled. All accessories such as agitators, sight glasses, thermometers, and air-space heaters were removed and manually cleaned separately, like washing dishes in the kitchen sink.

Employees used a source of warm water (normally a steam mixer that combined cold water and steam under pressure to heat the water to a temperature the employees could tolerate) and general-purpose alkali-based cleaning chemicals. The chemicals were generally alkaline to remove milk fat and proteinaceous soils, followed by a mild acidic cleaner every three or four days to remove the milk-stone that would build up from alkaline-only cleaning. All the chemicals had to be mild so as to not affect the operators’ skin or eyes.

The cleaning and sanitizing operations described above, in most dairies, were frequently done by employees as an entry-level job. They worked during the day shifts and, in larger dairies, on the night shift, often with little instruction or supervision. These important operations were completed by the least experienced personnel, but ironically were second in importance only to pasteurization in its impact on the quality of the product and protection of the public’s health.

PROFILE OF A CIP HERO

The Seiberling Family

The subject line of my May 2005 AOL email to the vice president of the trust that managed the 65-room Tudor mansion and estate known as Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens said, The Seiberlings want to have a party at your house.

It opened, I am Dale, son of Ernest, grandson of Carmon, and great-grandson of Columbus, and went on to explain how a group of 30 cousins had decided to have a reunion to celebrate the 265th anniversary of the Seiberlings coming to America, and had named me and the third of my six sisters, Lois, to be co-chairs of the event. Stan Hywet, a beloved landmark in Akron, was built by F.A. Seiberling, co-founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company® and later the Seiberling Rubber Company. The answer arrived, also by AOL, about 30 minutes later, and Stan Hywet made the day a huge Seiberling family success even as it accommodated the public.

That wasn’t my family’s first reunion. Fifteen years earlier, my father had chaired the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary and reunion in the recreation building of the City of Norton, and I was the master of ceremonies for the group of about two hundred from all over the US. My dad, Ernest Allen Seiberling, and one of his cousins, Francis Seiberling Burkholder, succeeded in merging the rubber company city Seiberlings in Akron with their dairy farmer country cousins in Norton, only 13 miles away.

My sister, Lois Seiberling Maston, with the assistance of many relatives, subsequently completed a Seiberling family genealogy from 1699 to 2010, from which the following is extracted: "All Seiberlings in America are descendants of Hans Michael Sauberlich, who came from Germany with his wife Sara Spiegel and four children on the ship Molly, arriving in Philadelphia from Amsterdam on October 17, 1741.

"A descendant Nathan Seiberling (1810–89) and his wife Catherine Peter left the Linnville, PA homestead for Ohio on April 15, 1831 with two horses, a covered wagon loaded with a few household utensils, and a baby girl. The journey to Ohio took 3 weeks, [with the family] arriving on May 10, 1831, at the home of Paul Baughman, in Chippewa Township, Wayne County, Ohio. Three weeks later they came to Norton, Ohio, and purchased 100 acres of land in Norton Township, Summit County. The land was covered with virgin forest. They finished a partly constructed log cabin and moved in on July 15. This was known as Griswold Corners, later to be known as Western Star. This little village was the second village to be incorporated in the state of Ohio.

"Nathan and Catherine had 15 children, including John Frederick, Monroe, F.A., C.W., and my great-grandfather Columbus. For a short period of time John Frederick lived on the farm across US 224 from the farm that became my grandfather’s farm and my father’s residence. F.A. Seiberling and C. W. Seiberling, founders of Goodyear Tire and Rubber and later Seiberling Tire and Rubber businesses, were born in