Vertrees, Joseph Hodgen, 1887-

Joseph Hodgen Vertrees played an integral role in the history of the School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR), formerly known as the Institute of Management and Labor Relations (IMLR), of Rutgers University. Born on October 10, 1887 in Curryville, Missouri, Vertrees excelled in baseball, earning his way onto the team while at Missouri Valley College. After graduating with an AB in 1913, Vertrees attended Columbia University, where he eventually earned an MA in Industrial Relations. During his graduate studies, he took other graduate courses on statistics at Princeton University as well as a course on personnel management from the Bureau of Industrial Research in New York City. (1)

From 1915-1916, Vertrees worked as a teacher in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Later in the First World War he served as the 1st Lieutenant of Cavalry and Field Artillery at Fort Snelling, Minnesota; Fort Crote, Nebraska; and San Antonio. In Fort Sill, Oklahoma he was an instructor in the Officers' Artillery School.

Understanding the worker's and manager's psyche was not a foreign concept for Vertrees as he had experiences early on in his career with both working and managing for steel companies such as the Soullin Steel Company in St. Louis Missouri, and the Commonwealth and American Steel Companies of Granite City, Illinois. From 1920-1922, Vertrees was the Personnel Manager at the Tide Water Oil Company in Bayonne, New Jersey and held the same position at William Filene's Sons Company in Boston, Massachusetts in 1923. From 1924-1927, he worked as a consultant in industrial relations for companies such as John Morrell and Company in Iowa and South Dakota, and the Western Union Telegraph Company in New York City. While there he helped establish or reform personnel departments as well as unionizing companies or installing other types of employee representation plans. (2)

Vertrees joined Rutgers in 1927 as a professor of industrial relations, helping to organize and teach human relations and leadership in industry courses as an Extension Specialist, a part of the University's Extension Department which preceded both IMLR and SMLR. During WWII he was head of the Management Department of the Engineering Science and Management War Training College/Program (ESMWTC), a government sponsored program for management in which 900 regular management groups were organized and conducted; also about 3,000 groups were organized in a ten hour "Training Within Industry" program sponsored by the War Manpower Commission. Shortly following the end of the war in 1945 he became Chairman of the Department of Management of University College at Rutgers and retired from that position in 1952. (3) He would later retire from teaching in 1960.

During his tenure at Rutgers, Vertrees published copious amounts of articles, and he also published a book in 1941, entitled Human Problems in Production Supervision . He also aided in the revision of N.C. Miller's Fundamentals of Foremanship .

Vertrees also belonged to and served at the head of many professional associations. These include but are not limited to the National University Extension Association, American Arbitration Association, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Management Association, and Society for the Advancement of Management. (4)

His personal life took a turn for the worse as a result of the death of his first wife in 1941 and consequently his own declining health. Vertrees remarried in 1944 and in 1946 had a daughter, Margie, who helped rejuvenate him with new vitality.

Throughout his professional career, not limited to the time he was at Rutgers, Vertrees was a pivotal force in foremen training and education. The teachings and techniques he employed helped to strengthen relations and decrease the gap between labor and management. Vertrees died in November 1988 in Jamesburg, New Jersey. (5)

(1) Joseph H. Vertrees, "Personal Record," (Resume) (1946 March 1): 1.

(2) William Filene's Sons Company, "J.H. Vertrees New Personnel Manager," Echo (1923 May 11): 1.

(3) Joseph H. Vertrees, Personal Letter to Charles H. Leonard (1955 April 4); "Former Management Chairman Honored By Missouri Valley," The Evening Collegian, Rutgers University (1953 May 15): n.p.

(4) "Former Management Chairman," The Evening Collegian, Rutgers University , n.p.

(5) U.S. Social Security Death Index , "Joseph Vertrees," accessible from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp . Accessed on 2006 March 13.

From the guide to the Guide to the Joseph H. Vertrees Papers, 1911-1988, bulk 1925-1959, (Rutgers University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives)