By David T. Bishop, for the Tribune

ROCHESTER — Fifty-five years ago, Rochester had just more than 30,000 residents and community leaders were searching for a business or industry to bring more jobs and residents here to supplement Mayo Clinic, the dominant employer.

City leaders formed and funded a firm aimed at achieving this effort and called it Industrial Opportunities Inc. A small property in northwest Rochester was purchased and an executive, Harold Kamm, was hired from an Iowa town’s chamber of commerce and given an office in Rochester’s Chamber building on First Avenue Southwest, next to the Post-Bulletin. Kamm’s job was to promote another industry here.

To Kamm’s enormous surprise, two businessmen walked into his office one day and gave him their business cards, telling him that International Business Machines had decided to build a manufacturing plant on two farms northwest of the city. The real estate agent, Leon Shapiro, bad brought purchase agreements to attorney Franklin Michaels and the law firm Pemberton, Michaels & Bishop, which was to be kept in utmost secrecy.

 

Why Rochester?

Many people throughout the years have wondered how and why IBM chose Rochester for its new plant site in the Upper Midwest.

The story is quite interesting and tells a a lot about IBM as well as Rochester. The story starts during World War II when Air Force Maj. Leland Fiegel, 28, of Rochester was chosen in 1942 by Gen. Omar Bradley to be the pilot on a secret mission to Moscow for discussions with Soviet authorities about war ally collaboration. On this highly sensitive mission, Fiegel’s co-pilot was Tom Watson Jr., the son of the founder of IBM. The two pilots struck up a friendship on the mission and during several weeks in Moscow. Later, Fiegel was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this important mission. On the return flight Fiegel flew the plane, stopping in Rochester, where the Lester Fiegel family hosted the entire crew for dinner at the Kahler Hotel.

When the war ended, Watson returned to IBM and Fiegel stayed in the Air Force, becoming chief of staff of the 20th Combat Bomber Wing. By 1948, then-Col. Fiegel had become assistant director of Air Force training in the Pentagon. En route to Washington after a meeting in New York with his friend Tom Watson, his plane lost an engine, burst apart and crashed. Fiegel was killed and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

About eight years later IBM hired a consultant to search for a new plant site in the Upper Midwest. Tom Watson Jr. had succeeded his father as CEO and board chairman, and the consultant presented two choices for final selection — Madison, Wis., and Rochester. Watson was told that Madison was the state capital, larger and had the state university. Rochester had only about 30,000 residents, but it had a large supply of hard-working people in the area. The only industry was Mayo Clinic and community leaders had started a search for more.

 

‘We’ll go to Rochester’

Watson asked the consultant if the two choices were relatively equal. When the answer was yes, he said, “Well then, we’ll go to Rochester, Minn..” He telephoned Leland Fiegel’s father, Lester J. Fiegel Sr., in Rochester to tell him the choice made in honor of his son and Watson’s close friend. This news was kept private by the Fiegels until IBM was ready to publicize it. This was done when Watson came to Rochester to make the announcement himself. He also visited the Fiegel family, including Lester J. Fiegel Jr. Watson later disclosed the Fiegel connection when he returned to Rochester to address the Mayo Medical School graduation.

A few years after IBM came to Rochester, Lester Fiegel Jr. finished his education, married Jackie Aird of Rochester and went to work for IBM as an electrical engineer. He stayed with the company for more than 30 years, first in Rochester and then in Austin, Texas, until he retired.

Lester Fiegel Jr. died of cancer this year. His family recently placed his ashes at the Fiegel family plot in Oakland Cemetery.

This is the story behind the most important event in Rochester’s history since the tornado that provoked the doctors Mayo to form Mayo Clinic. Lester Fiegel Jr.’s passing marks the end of an era that, through friendship and bonds formed during wartime, transformed Rochester.

 

David T. Bishop is a former state legislator and a businessman from Rochester.