FARGO — In 1949, Gilmore “Shelly” Schjeldahl, from North Dakota, began manufacturing the little leakproof air-sickness bags that were neatly tucked behind the passenger seats on almost all of the major commercial airplanes in the U.S. A little over a decade later, he was responsible for creating for NASA large communication satellites that revolved around the Earth every two hours.

These satellites revolutionized international communication because radio signals could be sent from one location and bounced off the satellite and received tens of thousands of miles away. With his many inventions, innovations and creations, Shelly founded five successful companies: Herb-Shelly; G. T. Schjeldahl Co.; Gil-Tech Development/Shedahl; Plastic Netting Machine Co.; and the Cathedyne Corp.

After turning out products for Armour and the Bemis Brothers Bag Co. in the 1940s, Shelly formed a partnership with Herb Harris in 1948, and they located their factory in Farmington, Minn. At that location, they made plastic liners for large containers and plastic bags and box-inserts for commercial food products.

Although Herb-Shelly was growing at a steady pace, it lacked the capital to be able to promote its products nationally. In May 1954, Brown and Bigelow, a St. Paul promotional products company that specialized in calendars and playing cards, made an offer to acquire Herb-Shelly as a subsidiary of their company and the offer was accepted. Shelly remained as president of the Herb-Shelly subsidiary.

After only a few months with Bemis, Shelly grew bored in his position as a corporate executive within a larger organization and, on Jan. 8, 1955, he resigned and divested of his remaining shares in the company. Shelly already had ideas for launching a new company. He would market the “automatic side-weld polyethylene bag-making machines” that he had designed for Herb-Shelly that he used to mass produce plastic bags.

After the Continental Can Co., in Stamford, Conn., purchased a machine, Shelly relocated to Northfield, Minn., and founded his new company, G. T. Schjeldahl (GTS), in the basement of the Medical Arts Building. Shelly’s machine sales would only constitute a small percentage of the revenue that he expected GTS to generate. This was largely because he was aware of a new polyester material that had just been invented by DuPont called BoPet. It had “high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, and reflectivity.” It was also lightweight, provided electricity insulation, and served as an excellent barrier to odors.

The trade name DuPont used for BoPet was Mylar. Shelly believed that this product was not only an excellent wrapping material for food products, but it also had the potential to be used for making high-altitude aeronautical balloons.

Shelly was excited to start up production for the new Mylar-based products he envisioned GTS manufacturing, but again, he was short on capital and needed to attract an investor. Bruce Gjovig, in his recent book, "Innovative Entrepreneurs from North Dakota," wrote, “He was introduced to a young venture capitalist, John ‘Jack’ Robinson, a native of Bismarck... Schjeldahl wanted no more than $50,000 and wanted to keep control of the company. Robinson listened to the proposal and knew he needed at least $200,000 (for it) to become a viable operation,” and Shelly ultimately agreed.

In April 1955, GTS received its first contract to produce “atmospheric research balloons made with Mylar polyester film, held together with an adhesive system that Schjeldahl developed.” With orders coming in, GTS went public on Sept. 1, 1955. For a new company to succeed, it needed good products or services, skilled and dedicated workers, compelling marketing and excellent management. Shelly was given credit for bringing in outstanding professional people, and two of his early hires that stood out were Dick Slater as the project engineer and Jim Womack as a salesman.

The sales of Mylar balloons by GTS received a huge boost in 1956 when one of their balloons, purchased by the University of Minnesota, reached a record altitude of 27 miles. By October 1957, GTS had received orders “to manufacture balloons from three branches of the military, two universities, and one corporation taking part in the space program." This was perfect timing because on Oct. 4 of that year, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. For the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the space race had begun.

Many members of Congress saw this as a “threat to national security,” and they passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act that was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on July 29, 1958. This act established the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) that consolidated many existing space-related organizations under one umbrella.

One of the major initial objectives of NASA was to put into space a communications satellite so that information could be quickly transmitted between two points many miles away. The name of this program was “Project Echo.”

Anticipating that GTS would be directly involved in this and other space projects, Shelly moved his operational headquarters, in 1958, to a 54-acre facility on the northern edge of Northfield, Minn. In 1959, NASA contracted with GTS “to design, develop, fabricate and test rigidized inflatable spheres for Project Echo.” Shelly was well-prepared to begin construction of satellite balloons/satelloons after signing the contract with NASA. A significant reason was because a major division of GTS, at Northfield, specialized in “Mylar polyester stratospheric balloons.”

GTS constructed a large (98 feet in diameter) spherical-shaped satelloon. Its thin-skin was made of Mylar, “coated with vaporized aluminum, and held together with ‘Schjel-bond,’ an adhesive Schjeldahl developed and perfected.” On May 13, 1960, the Echo satellite was loaded unto a Thor-Delta rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Unfortunately, shortly after liftoff, the rocket plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. GTS then built another satelloon that was loaded onto another rocket on Aug. 12, 1960. This time, the launch was successful.

When the rocket reached the prescribed elevation of 990 miles above the Earth's surface, the satelloon was jettisoned from the rocket, inflated by the mixing of chemicals and placed into orbit. The mission was celebrated as a huge success and GTS was considered “a leader in space technology.”

We will conclude the story of Gilmore Schjeldahl next week.

“Did You Know That” is written by Curt Eriksmoen and edited by Jan Eriksmoen of Fargo. Send your comments, corrections, or suggestions for columns to the Eriksmoens at cjeriksmoen@gmail.com.