Armed with an electrical engineering degree from the University of New Hampshire, graduate studies in industrial management and mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, Boston University, and Westinghouse Graduate School, and a Maine sense of what character, energy and hard work will do for one, Walter Johnson rose steadily in the field of manufacturing and process engineering. While at Thornton, he worked summers at Saco Lowell. During World War II he rose to the rank of major (where he received a bronze star and five battle stars). Moving from the Army to major post-war companies–Westinghouse, Acme, American Standard, Singer–Mr. Johnson used his knowledge and talents to rise continuously up the corporate ladder to Chairman and CEO of Thermal Components Inc. and McKenica Inc. by 1976. He tried retiring for two days in 1989, but was asked to work five more years–and not at any 9 to 5 job either. From 1989 to 1994 he served simultaneously as Chairman of the Board of Thermalex, a joint venture with Mitsubishi Aluminum Co. of Japan that he initiated, and vice-president and board member of the $1.2 billion Insilco Coporation of Midland, TX, where he was responsible for the operating results of three additional companies in the Northeast. Mr. Johnson currently lives in Alabama with his wife Althea Fogg Johnson, also Class of 1936.

See a list of past recipients