Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, Collector and Donor
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| Dr. Eckhart and Ischi Grohmann cut the ribbon during grand opening ceremonies at the Grohmann Museum. |
The Grohmann Museum is named in honor of Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE Regent, Milwaukee businessman and avid art collector, who donated this collection to MSOE in 2001 and subsequently the funds to purchase, renovate and operate the museum that bears his name. Dr. Grohmann and his wife, Ischi, are longtime supporters of scholarships for MSOE students and donated funds to purchase the property for the Kern Center, MSOE's health and wellness facility that opened in 2004.
To understand this unique collection, it is helpful to have some background on the collector, who grew up visiting his grandfather's large marble processing business and quarry operation in Silesia, Germany (now within the borders of Poland). It was there, watching the stonecutters and sculptors select raw material that would soon become a work of art, that Grohmann developed his appreciation and admiration of work. To Grohmann, hard work is not an idealized concept but a principle of life.
Grohmann is the former chairman and president of Milwaukee's Aluminum Casting & Engineering Co., a firm he acquired in 1965 and grew from a small foundry of 35 employees to a company ten times that size when he sold the business in 2007. A successful entrepreneur, Grohmann co-founded Central Control Alarm Corp. in 1980 and developed it into the leading alarm company in Wisconsin before selling it to Ameritech in 1997.
He earned a Diplom Kaufmann (MBA) from the University of Mannheim in 1962 and received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from MSOE in 1999. Dr. Grohmann has served as an MSOE Corporation member since 1974 and Regent since 1990. He has been collecting works of art since the 1960s.
In discussing his gift of the art collection to MSOE, Grohmann identified the similarity between the evolution of work and the pragmatic educational approach of the university. A university setting provides students, staff and visitors with a historical context for their own activities as they relate to engineering and business.
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Grohmann Museum |