Amazing life: McMinnville's John Klaus, 1909-2010
John Klaus, 100-years-old, died Jan. 2, 2010, at Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville with his devoted son and family at his side.
John was born August 25, 1909, in Bison, Kansas, to Henry and Margaret Klaus. Henry and Margaret were of German heritage and moved to Russia for free land. After unrest in Russia, they moved to a German community in La Crosse, Kansas.
John's older sister Ann died at age 17, his brother at 8, and his mother died when he was 10 years old, most likely from the flu of 1918. Younger brothers Henry and Seighardt and sister Alma survived to old age. They were sharecroppers and John spoke only German when he started school. John was proud that he never missed a day of school through his final year of 8th grade.
In 1925 John's father Henry sold all of their possessions including the dog, but not the family Bible and loaded everyone into a Model T. With John driving for the first time, they made their way toward relatives in the Portland, Oregon area. John recalled driving all day one day without seeing another car.
The family had supported themselves doing various jobs and farming, but all of that ended when milk and egg prices took a free fall in 1929. The depression caused John to join the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1934 in Colorado. He learned to be a heavy equipment operator and a Roosevelt Democrat. He met Helen Carr, a waitress working at the David Havin Resort in Colorado, and they were married on October 6, 1940. Their marriage lasted 50 years until Helen's death.
With the outbreak of World War Two, John moved to Anchorage, Alaska to construct an airfield. At the end of the war, John, Helen, and 6 month old son Dean traveled to Seattle, Portland, and south to McMinnville. John stopped at Bill Steel's service station and inquired about work. He was told that Compton's was hiring, and so he decided to stay. For the next 50 years they lived in the same house on South Davis Street that he bought the week he arrived for cash, quite an accomplishment for a man who had lost everything in 1934.
In the following years he worked for Wally Wright Paving and Weyerhaeuser in Molalla. In 1953 he decided that he wanted to be home during construction season, so he borrowed enough money from his sister to purchase a truck from Vinton and Larson's. In 1962, with advice from Linfield track coach Hal Smith, John mixed asphalt with tire recap buffing and produced a running surface that is still used today. By 1967 John had invented and constructed a machine that applied the material to mile running tracks throughout the Northwest, including the University of Washington and most of the High Schools as far away as British Columbia.
In 1974 he sold the business to Atlas Surfaces of Lake Oswego and went back to his shop to invent and construct the equipment that processed rubber into mats by applying heat. After many failures, including one in his wife's kitchen, he achieved success. He later sold the business that become R&B Rubber, McMinnville's 5th largest employer.
Upon retirement he continued to develop his ideas. From the environment (he dumped his garbage once a year, everything else was recycled) to health (unpasteurized goat's milk and filberts) to new power sources (harnessing wave energy) were either near genius or just ahead of their time. He had unlimited patience with mechanical things, to try and fail and try again.
John and Helen were life long members of First Presbyterian Church, and they were proud of their many friends in the church. John was also a strong supporter of Friends of Yamhill County. His 100 years of life are a testament to his belief in all things in moderation; and his ability to provide for his family, even after his death, is a testament to his Kansas Depression era youth.
John was preceded in death by his wife Helen, his brothers and sisters, and his special Grandson Dustin. His survived by his son Dean, daughter in law Debbie, grandchildren Danielle Bailey (John), Dyreka Wood (Kevin), Dormilee Kiger (Dylan) and Dorian, and three great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Saturday, January 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm at the Chapel of Macy and Son. Memorials may be given to McMinnville Wildlife Rehabilitation c/o Macy and Son Funeral Directors.
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John Klaus, pioneer in track & field ovals
By Scott Phoenix, USA Track & Field Newsletter, Nov. 8, 2019
The next Olympics returns to the site of the last Olympics to be contested on a cinder track. Amidst the red splashings in the rain and reddish dust on socks in the dry, nobody in 1964 had any idea what was to come in the world of tracks.
Fifty-five years before, 1909, a baby was born who was destined to become a giant in the world of track surfaces. Due to circumstances of his birth, he only made it through the 8th grade, working this labor job and that, but after the Depression hit and Franklin D. Roosevelt came to be President, the Civilian Conservation Corps was formed and this youth had a ticket out of abject poverty.
Assigned to work in Alaska during WW2, he came after its end to Portland and then McMinnville, where opportunities looked good, and that is how John Klaus came to be an Oregonian.
Eventually he started an equipment business near Linfield College Memorial Stadium/Maxsell Field, which included a modest, 2-man paving effort. About 1963 the then Linfield track coach, Hal Smith, wanted to know if Klaus could produce a softer surface for jumping events, a challenge Klaus accepted. He had equipment to use, but no material to put in it.
He came upon the idea of using what were called buffings, scrapings off the treads of bias-ply tires so that retread surfaces could be applied. Klaus's idea was to combine these bufferings with roofing asphalt, and he used a device of his own making, a 1’x2’ box into which the mixture could be poured so that propane–fueled burners could heat the ingredients and apply them to the ground as the box was dragged along. At first Klaus drove to Portland to bring back 55-gallon containers of bufferings, but as the business expanded, he switched to dumpster loads.
His first track was laid in 1967 in Estacada. For an entire track, a much larger heated screed was needed, so Klaus came up with something six feet wide that could be pulled behind a specially-geared truck to keep the speed at 1 mph. Carrying 1,000 gallons of asphalt and bufferings, the truck made one swath of the track, a day-long operation, then would be driven to Gresham for another load of asphalt to repeat the process three more times.
Klaus improved and improved again his process over the years and eventually put in as many as 14 tracks a year. They included a high school on Vancouver Island, the College of Redwoods, and even the University of Washington! No less a person than Univesity of Oregon men's track & field coach Bill Bowerman commented that Klaus’s track was the fastest of its time. The contract for the Estacada job was $10,000 or about $77,000 in 2019. Klaus basically kept the price for each one at that.
Klaus eventually sold his business to Atlas Tracks of Lake Oswego and turned his attention to making compressed rubber mats that are found in weight rooms and horse stalls everywhere.
Upon the death of his father, Dean Klaus made certain that the Klaus business property that was sold to Linfield bore a plaque in honor of his dad’s contributions to the betterment of track participants everywhere.
(See two photos of plaque posted here, taken by Mac News on 4/18/2023)
(Plaque located on edge of parking lot on SE Chandler Avenue. Locate plaque with GPS coordinates: 45°12'02.5"N 123°11'46.3"W)
(Submitted by Scott Phoenix, Certification Chair for the Oregon Association based upon information provided by Dean Klaus, Oct. 29, 2019)
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RB Rubber's parent
company sells to Arsenal Capital Partners
By Molly Walker, McMinnville N-R./News-Register, Dec. 28, 2012
Arsenal Capital Partners purchases home-grown company
Harold M. Stuhl Jr., chief operations officer for the rubber group of Dash Multi-Corp, expects it will be business as usual at RB Rubber Products in McMinnville, following the sale of its parent company, Dash Multi-Corp, to Arsenal Capital Partners. The transaction is anticipated to close by the end of December.
Arsenal is a private equity firm investing in middle-market industrial and healthcare companies. In addition to the rubber recycling through its local operation and a tire recycler in Portland, Dash Multi-Corp manufactures formulated polyurethane, vinyl plastisol and specialty coatings through MarChem, its plastics and chemicals business, and is reportedly generating over $100 million in total revenue.
Marvin Wool, Dash’s founder and president, is 84 and was desiring to sell, Stuhl said. The McMinnville operation for RB Rubber employs over 100.
“Arsenal Capital wants to grow the business, make them more successful and is willing to invest accordingly,” said Stuhl. “I’m very excited about this.”
The core business for RB Rubber includes manufacturing tiles from recycled rubber as matting for horse stalls, playground safety tiles and athletic flooring.
The business has been truly homegrown. It started when John Klaus of McMinnville saw old tires as a wasted resource. Crushing the tires into powder, he invented the product that provided RB Rubber’s foundation.
Initially, Klaus marketed products as a track and field surface through his business, J.K. Asphalt Paving. He sold that part of the business to Atlas Track and continued to develop other products from powdered rubber. But a fire prevented Klaus from getting that business really going.
Ron Bogh, who had graduated from McMinnville High School, purchased the operation from Klaus in 1985 and used his initials for the name RB Rubber. At first, he was a one-person business.
He expanded the company to 30 employees by 1990.
Bogh took the business public in 1995 to raise money for an expansion and it subsequently purchased a Portland tire recycler in 1998. Six-months later, Dash, a St. Louis, Mo.-based company, made an offer and Bogh sold his controlling interests. By that time, there were 72 employees.
In 2003, Dash, which was wholly owned by Wool and his family, made a deal to purchase the remaining shares and the company returned to private ownership.
The acquisition of Dash is one of several made by Arsenal during 2012.
“Dash operates in several exciting sectors and our plan is to invest in the business and identify strategic acquisitions to expand its core capabilities and provide more solutions to customers,” said Tim Zappala, a partner at Arsenal who is the co-head for the firm’s specialty industrials group.
Henrik Voldbaek now serves as the general manager for the McMinnville operation.
