Join the Butler County Historical Society as guest speaker Charles E. Rentschler of Hartsville , Indiana , presents the history of the companies formed by industrialist George Adam Rentschler, his sons and grand children. His talk, “How the Rentschler Family Shaped Hamilton,” will be at 1 p.m. on January 18 in the Emma Ritchie Auditorium at the Butler County Historical Society, 327 North 2nd Street , Hamilton . The program is free to the public.

Rentschler who served as president and CEO of Hamilton Foundry and Machine Company from 1985 to 2001 will tell the story of his grandfather and patriarch of the family, industrialist George Adam Rentschler. Rentschler was one of the founders of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler (HOR) in 1880 and Hamilton Foundry and Machine Company in 1892. HOR merged with Niles Tool Works in 1928 to form General Machinery Corporation which, after two other mergers, became Lima-Baldwin-Hamilton Corporation in 1950. Hamilton Foundry and Machine Company survived as Hamilton Allied Corporation until the local foundry closed in 1984.

George Rentschler’s three sons also made substantial contributions to the development of the city. George A Rentschler, the speaker’s father, served as president of General Machinery Corporation and merged it with Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton in 1950. Gordon Sohn Rentschler worked to create the Miami Conservancy District after the 1913 flood and went on to build New York ’s National City Bank into the enormous CitiBank. Frederick Brandt Rentschler formed Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company and, with partners Chance Vaught and William Boeing, United Airlines.

Speaker Rentschler has worked as a machinery analyst, management consultant, production manager, and served as president and CEO of Hamilton Foundry and Machine Company from 1985 until the firm ceased operations in 1997. After retiring in 2009, Charles researched and wrote The Cathedral Builder: A Biography of J. Irwin Miller, the long-time CEO of the Cummins Engine Company. In 2018, Rentschler published Fortitude: The Story of My Ancestors in which he describes the contributions and history of the Rentschler family. Copies of Rentschler’s book will be available purchase and author signing after the program.