Lincoln Electric Employee of the Century dies at 99

Welding industry pioneer and Lincoln Electric’s Employee of the Century, Omer W. Blodgett, died on Jan. 11, 2017, at age 99. A world-renowned authority on the design of welded connections, he spent 60 years working at Lincoln Electric, retiring as a senior design consultant.

Blodgett became involved in welding when he struck his first arc at the age of 10 with his father’s Lincoln Stable-Arc welding machine in Minnesota. Through his high school years, Blodgett worked as a welder at his father’s company and became certified as a welder for high-pressure applications in 1938.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota and then became a welding superintendent at the Globe Shipbuilding Co.

Blodgett met James F. Lincoln and joined Lincoln Electric after World War II, first serving as a technical representative and later as a design consultant, working in both the mechanical and structural fields. He was the primary presenter of the Lincoln Electric Welding Design Seminars, frequently spoke on welding design at AWS sectional and national meetings, and conducted welding design seminars all over the world. He also authored numerous technical articles and handbooks on design, including Design of Weldments and Design of Welded Structures.

Blodgett was a fellow of ASCE, ASME, and AWS, and contributed to a number of professional organizations, including the AWS D1 Structural Welding Committee, the AISC Committee on Specifications, and the Welding Research Council (WRC) Task Group on Beam-to-Column Connections.