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Bruce E. Dixson - Biography
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Bruce E. Dixson - November
26, 1917 - October 2011
Bruce E. Dixson, long-time Grand Junction gentleman, partner, father,
businessman, inventor, manufacturer and philanthropist, died at his home Monday,
October 24, 2011. He was 93. Bruce Dixson was in many ways a pillar of the
community, previously one of the Grand Valley's top employers and a diligent
contributor of his knowledge and wisdom to non-profit boards. He was a generous
financial provider to causes that he found to be worthy, such as scholarships
and an entrepreneurial center at Mesa College, the building or expansion of
health care facilities, and to organizations that aided the disadvantaged. Born
November 26, 1917 in Jacksonville, Florida, to Ross Dixson and Ruth Lining
Milam, Bruce grew up in Florida and Georgia graduating from the
University of Georgia in 1939 with a degree in engineering. On June 2,
1945 he married Louise Alice Kauffmann in Los Angeles, CA. During World War II
he worked for the Sperry Gyroscope Co., spending hundreds of hours flying in
military planes making improvements on aircraft navigation gyroscopes. Following
the war he worked for the Boeing Aircraft Co. in southern California and in
Everett, WA. He and Louise co-founded a manufacturing company in their garage on
Vashon Island, WA in 1958. Bruce conceived a way to simplify the installation of
tachometers (instruments that display engine RPM on autos, boats and trucks) and
to expand their retail sales potential through a unique electronic system he
devised allowing a single model to be installed on a wide variety of vehicles.
In 1963, Bruce was buying electronic meter movements, key elements in his Dixco
brand tachometers, from General Meters in Grand Junction. General Meters was in
financial difficulty and its board members convinced Bruce to move his operation
to Grand Junction and take over the failing meter company. Bruce hired trucks
that not only transported his manufacturing operation from Vashon, but also the
household goods of his employees who moved to Grand Junction with him. Between
1963 and 1987 when it was sold, Dixson, Inc. was one of Mesa County's largest
employers, with over 450 people working at the 110,000 square foot Orchard Mesa
Plant at 287 27 Road and at a 36,000 square foot giftware manufacturing facility
at 304 West Main, Grand Junction. In addition to the local operations, Dixson,
Inc. owned manufacturing plants in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, City of Industry,
California and in Douglas, Arizona/Agua Preita, Mexico. The Dixson operation was
acquired in 1995 by Ametec, Inc. and continues to manufacture instrumentation
for trucks, busses and other heavy duty vehicles. Bruce Dixson was very active
in organizations promoting American manufacturing and product marketing. He was
one of the founders and the second president of the Automotive Parts and
Accessories Association, a national trade association with annual trade shows in
major American cities bringing manufacturers and retailers together. Bruce held
a dozen or more patents, ranging from inventions improving the performance of
aircraft gyroscopes to systems to filter out bacteria, dust and odors coming
through a car's ventilation system. Bruce was industrious and enterprising from
an early age and never afraid of hard work. As a youngster he went door to door
selling fabric and he developed a take-out delivery service from the restaurant
where he worked during high school. During his college days, he paid his way by
buying, fixing up and reselling old cars. In Los Angeles he bought, expanded,
managed and sold a large coin-operated laundry. At one point in his career he
with his young family owned and operated a plum and cucumber farm in Salem,
Oregon.
He was one of the very first to own a private houseboat on Lake Powell. He and
invited friends explored almost every bit of that 182 mile-long lake in its
beginning days in the 1960s and 70s. He was also a founding member and first
president of the then brand-new Powderhorn Ski Area on the Grand Mesa. He
semi-retired from his business in 1977, moved to the San Francisco Bay area to
study celestial navigation and diesel mechanics with the intention of building a
boat by hand to sail around the world. That effort ended, unfortunately, when a
trial version of his boat capsized on San Francisco Bay, after which Bruce, with
his great sense of humor, decided he was better off on dry land. He gave his
boat to the Boy Scouts and moved to Tucson, AZ where he bought a home and
totally remodeled it himself. At the age of 79 he had great enjoyment in
planning and building a log cabin on Pinyon Mesa. Following his complete
retirement in 1987, he devoted himself to reading, travel, golf, camping and
philanthropy. Bruce was an adventurous traveler. At the height of the Cold War,
he entered the Soviet Union at Vladivostok, traveled by the Siberian Express
Train and in Moscow collected a bill overdue in a business transaction. Other
interesting destinations were Poland, Tibet, Nepal, New Zealand, Greece, Italy,
Spain and South America. He took up golf at about age 50 and enjoyed weekly
matches with friends at the Bookcliff Country Club and later was a regular at
the Chipeta Golf Course on Orchard Mesa until age and health issues forced him
to reluctantly give up the game.
As a philanthropist, he carefully studied the services and needs of local
charitable organizations and quietly provided important funding for many of them
over the years. Bruce always took great pride in what he felt was an even more
important contribution: Providing many hours of his personal time and his
financial, business and organizational expertise to help those non-profit
agencies and charities to function more efficiently and effectively. Over the
past 30 years, Bruce has been a dedicated supporter of Colorado Mesa University,
The Salvation Army, St. Mary's Hospital, the Grand Junction Regional Library,
Marillac Clinic, Catholic Outreach, Family Health West, Hospice of Western
Colorado, the Western Colorado Community Foundation, Hilltop and many other
local charities and community organizations. He is a past president of the Mesa
State College Foundation and a long-time board member of the Salvation Army and
was instrumental in acquiring buildings and facilities for both of those
organizations. In 1992 he was given an Honorable Mention as the Colorado
Philanthropist of the Year by the Colorado Association of Non-Profit
Organizations and in 2005 he was recognized with the William Booth Award, a
prestigious Salvation Army award given to only a select few recipients in the
world.
With his long-time associate George Wheeler, Bruce purchased the Nellie Bechtel
apartment complex in Grand Junction, remodeled and upgraded the facility and
made it into a comfortable home for many senior couples and individuals. Bruce
was preceded in death by his wife, Louise and his son, Bob. He is survived by a
step-son, Barton Keith of Denver; former daughter-in-law, Nancy Pool Morgan of
Denver; three nieces and their families, Kathy McElveen of Columbia, GA, Suzanne
Thomas of Augusta, GA and Barbara Dixson of Stevens Point, WI and by his life
partner, Carole Moritz. An open house celebration of Bruce Dixson's life will be
held from 2 - 6:00 p.m, Saturday, November 5, 2011 at the Redlands Community
Center, 2463 Broadway. Friends, associates and former employees are encouraged
to come, remember and honor Bruce. Memorial contributions in Bruce's name may be
sent to any of the local, non-profit organizations named above.
Published in The Daily
Sentinel on Oct. 27, 2011 |
