Company History

 

Packer Engineering, Inc. was founded in 1962 by Dr. Kenneth F. Packer, a metallurgist with a dream of providing a multitude of clients, in equally as many industries, with scientific theory and fact-based resolutions to all problems. In the beginning, Packer Engineering was little more than a one-man operation based out of Naperville, Illinois. Although a one-man operation, Dr. Packer’s determination and will of a thousand men steadily expanded the company’s capabilities and operations.

As a former marine, World War II veteran and father of four, Dr. Packer built Packer Engineering based upon core values such as honor, integrity, community, servitude, and unity. For decades, his entrepreneurial spirit has ingratiated Packer Engineering within global, scientific communities, academic communities, and social communities. Packer Engineering is comprised of talented professionals operating much like a family sharing responsibilities, knowledge, and glory.

His original mission was to provide metallurgical services to small manufacturers. The first laboratory was on 5th Avenue, Naperville, Illinois.  Rapidly needing more space, the company moved into the Boecker Fuel and Grain Building and from there into small quarters at the current Washington Street location.  After many additions to the staff and enlargements to the Naperville building and facilities, the company evolved into a world-class, multidisciplinary, consulting, engineering and technical-services company.

Over the last 46 years, thousands of projects have come through our doors.  These projects can go from the microscopic to the macroscopic in just minutes.  For example, in 1965, Dr. Packer inspected the timing mechanism from Gordon Cooper’s Gemini GT-5 retro rockets to determine why Cooper almost landed in Africa when his rocket’s firing device failed. It was a small clock mechanism about the size of a large wristwatch with small gears and stem about 1/8 of an inch in diameter.  The tiny gear had a surface face of approximately 1/16 inch.  The very next day, he flew to Canada to inspect mining equipment gears with a surface face of 7 feet across.  This example highlights the diversity of projects we experience almost daily.

Further, Packer Engineering provides a valuable, business to business service which includes not only engineering consulting and investigative work but also research and development. 

As an organization specializing in engineering and scientifically grounded consulting services, Packer Engineering not only helps make the world a safer and better place to live and raise a family but is assisting in the challenges of conquering space.  Some of our innovative ideas include:

1.  Partnering with Northwestern University & SOCOM (a government agency), our staff helped design and built a light weight, high strength canopy for a Navy vessel.

2.  We helped design and build a Wheelchair Aerobic Fitness Trainer (WAFT). This is a device for the evaluation, rehabilitation, and development of cardio respiratory fitness for individuals with lower limb disabilities. The WAFT uses computer-controlled brakes and data recordings to measure wheelchair speed and physical work at each exercise stage. The WAFT was a joint development venture of Packer Engineering and the Rehabilitation Research & Development department at Edward Hines, Jr. hospital, a facility of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  Later, we donated the original chair to the University of Kentucky Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation department.

3.  Why wait until we are living on the moon to find out what special manufacturing problems we are going to encounter in a reduced gravity environment?  Packer Engineering took part in a Solidification Design and Control Consortium project addressing one aspect of that question.

Packer Engineering's role in this project was to produce a robust simulation software package capable of predicting the thermo-physical phenomena that occurs during casting in various gravity environments.  Four Packer employees took their experiment up in NASA's KC-135 during March, 2002. The KC-135 turbojet transport aircraft, reducing gravity, flew in a parabolic trajectory.  The periods of reduced gravity lasted between 20 to 25 seconds each. The solidification of a metal was simulated during the reduced gravity by using a metal analog.  An infrared camera recorded the data of the solidification process for further study as to whether the lack of gravity reconfigures the data.  This experiment was all about the potential reconfiguration.  Our engineer and technicians had a blast in the reduced gravity environment.

4.  Packer Engineering completed a NASA SBIR program on the extraction of oxygen from lunar soil. Lunar soil, also called regolith, is 40% oxygen by weight, but that oxygen is tightly bound in minerals. Oxygen is vitally important for space operations, both for propellant and for life support. To reduce mission constraints, an oxygen factory is needed which produces many times its own weight each year. A new approach to oxygen beneficiation arose during this work, in a collaborative effort between Packer Engineering and CU Aerospace (Urbana, IL) which could produce 40 times its weight in oxygen in one year. This is a potential candidate for the MoonROx Challenge, issued by the California Space Authority, for a $1,000,000 prize to the first team to produce 2.5 kg of oxygen in 4 hours from simulated lunar soil. This work is part of a broader initiative to enable space solar power, a technology with the potential to provide all mankind with pollution-free energy for all time to come.

5.  Packer Engineering holds 6 patents pending on the use of nano-porous silicon for storing hydrogen. Hydrogen is the ideal fuel for a fuel cell, but efficient storage of this tiny, energetic substance is very difficult.  Packer demonstrated a very impressive 4.9% storage during an initial feasibility study funded by the Edison Materials Technology Center and co-funded by Delphi Corp. These results were released publicly at an invited lecture at the National Nano Engineering Conference 2007 held in Boston. Current research efforts aim to validate key engineering issues to clear the way for commercialization. Beyond the vehicle market, hydrogen storage will be needed in portable electronics, and for stationary/backup power generation.

 

Over the last 4 decades, Packer Engineering has served its local communities in a multitude of ways: 

1.  We were one of the leading business entities in support of the development of the professional East-West Corporate Corridor within the State of Illinois.  Specifically, Packer Engineering led the charge relative to the advancement of the scientific and engineering communities within the western suburbs of Chicago. 

2.  Packer Engineering financially and emotionally supported the growth of local businesses and academic institutions within the State of Illinois.

3.  We have donated to multiple organizations.  A few include: the United Way, the Heartland Blood Bank, the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association, School District 203, the Bolingbrook Aviation Museum, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the Packer Foundation, and Packer Wings.

4.  Staff at Packer found out the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association (WDSRA) was in need of a float for the numerous parades in which they participate.  At no cost to this organization, Packer staff and students designed and built a new float for them to use all year round without sustaining damage from the elements.

5.  To commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Wright Brothers first powered flight on Dec 17, 1903, four separate groups (including NASA) built an exact, flight-worthy reproduction of the first airplane. One group, The Wright Redux Association (WRA) of Glen Ellyn,Illinois, built and named their plane "The Spirit of Glen Ellyn."  Packer Engineering volunteered to build a replica of the original gasoline engine to power their airplane.  Packer put hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars into building this engine.  This was the only replica built for the centennial which actually flew in 2003.  After the plane flew, it was donated along with the Packer replica engine to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industrywhere it is currently on display.

6.  After Katrina, Packer employees provided a home, furnishings, and clothing to a displaced family until they were able to return to New Orleans.  We sent numerous care packages to families still in New Orleans.

7.  Upon hearing the dilemma of a young doctor stationed in Iraq, staff members purchased soft toys to be shipped to this young doctor so he would be able to connect with the children who were coming to him for medical attention.

8.  During the Holidays every year, our staff adopts several families and supplies them with Christmas gifts, food, trimmings, etc.  Employees donate approximately $2,000 every year in gifts and food for these families.

9.  Dedicated to the growth and development of children in the engineering and scientific communities, Dr. Packer created the Packer Education Foundation to provide practical application training in science and engineering to school teachers. 

10.  Packer also administers annual internship and apprenticeship programs for high school and college students as well as teachers from Naperville and Aurora schools.  We employ between 15 and 25 students every summer.  They leave Packer with a wealth of knowledge.  The program has been so successful that many students spend every summer with us throughout their college years.  Also, two of our current Vice Presidents started out as summer interns.

11.  Additionally, Dr. Packer established the STEP intern program specifically for high school students to experience hands-on engineering.  These15 high school students are paid through the foundation while they learn about science and engineering.

12. Dr. Packer created the not-for-profit Packer Wings, which educates students and teachers about aviation.  Every year, Packer hosts dozens of students in the capacity of paid internships providing experiences in scholarly theory and practical application.

13. Aside from professionally affecting local communities and its membership, Packer Engineering encourages its employees and ‘family’ members to participate within community-based operations. Over the years, Packer has supported the teenage outreach programs, Naperville rotary initiatives, local high school functions, the Naperville Chamber of Commerce, the Naperville Exchange Club, the North Central College student interviewing process, as well as collegiate programs nationwide.  Specific academic institutions Packer Engineering has partnered with include: Naperville North High School, Naperville Central High School, University of Illinois, Northwestern University and Illinois Benedictine University.

14. Several of our engineers’ taught a full semester-long course (offering full academic credit) via a collaborative effort by Packer Engineering professionals at the prestigious Northwestern University in forensic engineering. This course was the first forensic engineering course provided to students in the history of Northwestern University.  Based on student reception and satisfaction surveys, Packer Engineering provided instruction relative to forensic engineering at Northwestern as well as other such institutions.

15.  For the past few years, we have assisted students at Northern Illinois University and Olivet Nazarene University with design and testing of parts for their race cars they built in order to participate in the annual Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) race.

16. One of our proudest accomplishments was to help set free an innocent man.  Over the years, news reports have increased surrounding the validity of convictions of several death row inmates.  A local attorney asked Packer Engineering to work on a Pro-Bono (no fee) case.  He wanted us to review an investigation surrounding one of these arson-based convictions.  We used our 40 years of engineering and investigative experience to evaluate this arson fire.

The original investigation determined the alleged perpetrator deliberately set fire to a Chicago apartment building in 1987.  This incendiary fire killed seven people.  The investigation and subsequent trial resulted in the conviction of a tenant for the crime of arson and murder, for which he subsequently received a death sentence.

After Packer Engineering's review of the file, it became apparent there were serious technical errors in the investigation and its findings.  Even though this was an old fire scene, it was well documented through photographs, testimony, and reports.

Several Packer engineers plus a Certified Fire Investigator from our Chemical, Fire & Explosion Group spent hundreds of hours studying the fire scene photographs, witness testimony, expert reports and opinions of both the prosecution and defense experts. The prosecution expert's opinions were contrary to the fire scene evidence and the science of fire dynamics. We employed the standard metric "Scientific Method" to evaluate all of this material and technical issues from which we were able to form our final opinions.

Packer Engineering submitted a technical report and testimony asserting this was an incendiary fire with no physical evidence that the convicted man set the fire. This analysis and the subsequent opinions were a factor in the State of Illinois' decision to commute the sentence and pardon the innocent man.

Today, Packer Engineering maintains its national headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, with engineers and adjuncts located in Michigan, Maryland, Florida, Ohio and Scotland.  Throughout its history, Packer Engineering has grown in size, capabilities, locations, and services. The last four (4) decades have brought Packer Engineering infinite opportunities and some hardships based upon local and national environments.  In every instance, Packer Engineering survived as an organization predicated upon truth, ethics, and honor.  We forward to a bright and exciting future.