Hey guys it's Adventure Van here with a blog about John R. Oishei, the founder of Trico, which was the leader of the Windshield cleaner industry for over 100 years and still is a major force in the industry. He also was one of the most localized business owners, keeping the company in it's original founding place (Buffalo, NY). He's the main reason you honestly have such high tech window washers, even if you don't think of them that much.
As for those who think that window washers are simple and easy, there was a time when you had to manually control them. Because of Trico's continuous need to stay on the top of the business, they pioneered and mastered the spring loaded wipers, then went on to create a prototype of the wipers we have today. They also work together on advancing other products, but they always are trying to stay on top, and improving our safety in the process. Now, on to the man behind the wheel. (ha ha ha)
The reason we have window wipers are because a rich man who owned a car going by the name of John Oishei hit a bicyclist on a rainy dark night. While the bicyclist was okay, this gave him a 'harrowing experience' that helped drive his motives to create safe ways to drive in the rain with a clear view. After finding that the only way to really do so was cut a hole in your windshield, which defies it's purpose of being a 'wind shield', he met John Jepson, who had created a squeegee contraption that would mount between two panes of glass in the car.
Oishei worked with him for the patent to become popularized, and met up with two friends named Peter Cornell and William Haines and formed a company to begin producing, with only 8 employees. In fact, they were put into a great position of power as Buffalo's market for them were ready receptors for this invention, and the business advanced so well that Oishei was able to buy the patent from Jepson, and began selling the 'Rain Rubber' across the country.
While their business slackened off during WII, afterwords they expanded immensely and put out branches into Europe and Australia. Oishei wanted this company to be named the Ti-Continental Corporation, but it was already in use, so they named themselves 'Tri-Co', and then dropped the hyphen, become Trico. With the car business in huge success for all people, Trico was the leading producer of the wipers required to pass the new government standards of safety.
However, despite all this growth, there was one problem. The main heart of the auto industry moved to Detroit, but Trico stayed based in Buffalo. They set a business branch to Detroit, but the main producing kept going on in Buffalo. He ended up having to talk to people like Henry Ford and tell them that he would not move, 'due to an allegiance to his city', resulting in Ford yelling that he'd never do business with them again. (Ford began buying Trico wipers a year after this statement.) He was threatened by GM that if he didn't move, they'd produce their own wipers. He replied that they should.
However, all good things come to the end, and he got old like the rest of us. He created the John R. Oishei Foundation to help supplement '(the city's) needs, medical care, education welfare, and assistance in such a manner that the Trustees shall determine.' He died in 1968, but both Trico and the John R. Oishei Foundation are still running, the former still topping the industry and the latter giving out contributions of up to $140 million to those who need it.
That's Adventure Van, cleaning to the brightest.
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