Who put the Martin in Martin Tower?

Martin Tower may disappear from the Bethlehem skyline Sunday morning, but the man for whom it was named will live on in the history of the storied company that built it.Edmund F. Martin, Bethlehem Steel chairman from from 1964-70, was at the helm when construction began on the 21-story world headquarters in west Bethlehem. Aiming to bring its vast professional talent and leadership under one roof, Martin was in the midst of modernizing the business celebrated for building the battleships that won two world wars and national icons like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building.Martin, a Chicago native who grew up in Orange, N.J., had a knack for the steel business at an early age. At 15, he applied to Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, scoring a 98 percent on the trigonometry test an admissions counselor had him take, according to newspaper articles.Upon graduation, Martin had three job offers: a drop forge company, an elevator company and Bethlehem Steel. His chemistry professor advised him to work for the steel company if he had a good “constitution,” Martin recalled in a 1964 interview with The Morning Call.“I think he gave me good advice,” Martin said.Martin began working as a machinist at Bethlehem Steel at 19 and worked his way up after admission into the company’s “Loop Course,” the company’s famed management training program, according to a the Industrial Archives and Library, a Bethlehem nonprofit.He met his future wife, Frances Taylor, in Bethlehem. They married in 1926 and had two children, Bettie and Barbara. By 1950, Martin became general manager at the Lackawanna plant outside Buffalo, N.Y. The plant increased its annual capacity there by more than 2 million tons, according to the archives. In 1958, Martin was called back to Bethlehem, where he became vice president of operations, rising to chairman and CEO by 1964.The era had been marked by great a push to modernize the steel industry. Homer Research Laboratories was established on South Mountain. Steel began construction in 1962 on a fully integrated, highly efficient steel mill — the largest private investment in U.S. history at the time — in Burns Harbor, south of Chicago, according to the archives.Meanwhile, the company would soon begin jousting with the federal government over steel prices. Martin defended the company over anti-trust charges, but eight steel companies, including Bethlehem Steel, were ultimately fined a maximum of $50,000 each, according to Martin’s obituary in The New York Times.Construction on Martin Tower began in 1969, cementing Bethlehem Steel’s commitment to stay headquartered in the small city where it was started.Stewart S. Cort, Martin’s successor, had described Martin Tower as an enduring symbol of the transition between the “old-style, one-man executive officer” and “the new corporate team-style management,” in newspaper articles.Martin Tower is celebrated for its modern elegance of walnut-paneled executive office, hand-made rugs, doorknobs emblazoned with the company’s I-beam logo and cruciform shape that provided corner offices for its vast leadership.Excess is not how Martin’s cohorts viewed his leadership style. He had a reputation for cost-cutting when he returned to Bethlehem in 1958 from his successful stint in New York. He removed linen napkins from the restrooms, ended “long coffee breaks” and, when he became chairman, cut his own salary. His friends called the cuts “Martinizing,” according to newspaper articles.”The decisions I made were unpopular,” Martin recalled in a 1980 interview. “I got rid of a lot of things and a lot of people. But it’s the bottom line that counts. You’ve got to make money.”Martin retired in 1970 from a company that then had 22,000 employees in Bethlehem and 125,000 worldwide, according to the archives. He never had an office at Martin Tower, which employees began occupying in 1972. At the dedication in 1973, he was given a model of Martin Tower.He joked: “I would rather hold the model than the mortgage.”Bethlehem Steel would post its first deficit four years later in 1977, a time of growing labor costs, competition and other challenges. The company began downsizing, stopped making steel in Bethlehem in 1995, declared bankruptcy in 2001 and sold its assets in 2003.Martin died of arteriosclerosis in 1993 in Bethlehem. He was 90.Martin TriviaBy the time he became chairman in 1964, Martin’s golf game was in the “80s.”He had a pet poodle named Cherie when he became chairman.He liked to fish for tarpon and make birdhouses.He gave up smoking at 8 p.m. March 29, 1961.At 78, about a decade after retirement, he swam 50 laps three times a week at the YMCA pool in Bethlehem.From The Morning Call archivesMorning Call reporter Nicole Radzievich can be reached at 610-778-2253 or at nmertz@mcall.com
Source: Morningcall