Hakon W. Ramberg

RAMBERG IRON WORKS

AN enterprise of importance among those devoted voted to the repair of steamships is that of the Ramberg Iron Works, having plant and yards at Pioneer and Imlay Streets in Brooklyn.

T he president of that company, Hakon W. Ramberg, brings to the business the benefit of lifelong experience in the ship business. He is a native of Christiania, Norway, and after he left school he became an apprentice in one of the large shipyards of that place, gaining a thorough and practical knowledge of the shipbuilder's art. In no country has the marine interest been more developed than in Norway, whose people have rein seafarers from their earliest history. Mr. Piamberg, after having learned the shipbuilding art in the yards, entered upon a career of about fifteen years of seafaring, as engineer of steamships sailing out of Christiania to all parts of the world. In 1902 he came to the United States, and has since been actively identified with the shipbuilding industry here, being with A. Olsen n Union Street, Brooklyn, for about twelve years, :hen in business for himself in Sullivan Street un- ::I May, 1917, when he with associates organized the Ramberg Iron Works, buying the machinery . nd renting the buildings of the plant at Pioneer and Imlay Streets, Brooklyn, where the company has since been engaged very busily in the business _f repairing steamers. The equipment now in ::se includes a yard with a capacity for handling fourteen to eighteen ships at a time, and the include equipment and facilities for every kind of repair work to ships, including iron and steel work, tinsmith and coppersmith work, boiler work, machine work, carpentry, painting, rigging, and every description of work for the complete of the hull, equipment, machinery, and appointment of all kinds of vessels. The reputation of the company is excellent, not only for the quality of its work, but also for exceptional promptness and dispatch in the execution of contracts.

The yards are being kept busy up to capacity and more, and the need for expansion of facilities has long been apparent. For this reason Mr. Ramberg and his associates have incorporated the Ramberg Dry Dock and Repair Company, to take over the business of the Ramberg Iron Works.

In this connection the company has serared idea-tional ground adjoining their present premise;, upon which it is building and equipping a dryJock and additional yard and machinery.

The drydock the company is building is a structure of modern design and equipment. It being built of steel and will accommodate vessels of large tonnage. In design, construction, and finish it will combine all the best features of the finest and most improved shipyards in this and European works. Its equipment will include a complete outfit of pneumatic tubes, electric lights, electric cranes, and every device calculated to improve and expedite the work of handling, docking, repairing and relaunching steamships, in accordance with the best modern methods.

Much of the work done by the company is for the Government of the United States and its Allies, and the satisfaction given by the work that the company is doing is attested by the fact that it continues to receive Government orders in increasing quantity.

The officers of the Ramberg Iron Works and of its successor, the Ramberg Dry Dock and Repair Company, are Hakon W. Ramberg, president; John Christoffersen, vice-president; and Rodney Hartinson, secretary.

Mr. Christoffersen, the vice-president, is a native of Norway, born in Ivedestrand. He has been identified with business in the line of ships from boyhood, his father having been a manufacturer of ship equipment in Norway. Mr. Christoffersen began his business career with his father and continued in Norway until 1906, when he came to the United States. Here he continued his connections with shipping, being with Lamport & Holt for five years and after that with the Olsen Iron Works for about three years, until he joined Mr. Ramberg in the organization of the Ramberg Iron Works in 1917. The secretary, Rodney Martinson, is a member of the New York bar in active practice.

With the increased facilities to be afforded by the substantial additions to the plant and yard and the building of the new shipways the capacity of the company will be multiplied eight