3/4/2024 Julia Park
Written by Julia Park
MechSE alumnus Alexander Rankin V passed away on February 20, 2024, at his home in Bedminster Township, Pennsylvania. He was 91.
Along with Joanne, his late wife of 66 years, Rankin was a longtime friend and supporter of the MechSE department, with the endowment of two professorships beginning more than two decades ago.
In 2000, the Rankins honored the well-known and beloved machine design professor by endowing the James W. Bayne Professorship. In 2003, they established the Alexander Rankin Professorship in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in honor of the men after whom he was named: his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather.
In 1986 he received the (then-named) Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2012 he was inducted into The Grainger College of Engineering Hall of Fame.
Born in Chicago, he was the son of the late Alexander IV and Marie (Gears) Rankin. Following his 1950 graduation from Calumet High School in Chicago, Rankin proudly served with the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, having been stationed stateside during the Korean War and attaining the rank of Corporal.
Rankin graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1957 from the University of Illinois with the goal of owning his own business within 10 years. He began his professional career with Firestone Tires and, notably, was on the team that invented radial tires.
True to his earlier vision, in 1967 he opened Vulcan Spring and Manufacturing Co. Initially a small operation run out of his basement—with one spring coiling machine, one customer, and one order—Vulcan moved into a small factory space six months later. He owned and operated the company in Telford, Pennsylvania, for more than 50 years until his retirement.
Rankin’s interest in mechanical engineering began long before his time at Vulcan or Illinois. He remembers having a strong, persistent curiosity and talent for all things mechanical even in childhood.
“Every day on my way home, I’d try to bring home a broken toaster, vacuum cleaner, or some other appliance,” Rankin said in 2012 at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “I wanted to take them apart, see how they worked, and see why they were broken. My father’s biggest expense was probably fuses, because I had to plug these things in to really see how they worked.”
His childhood passion materialized in a children’s product when a Vulcan spring was used to drive the speech mechanism of the “Talking G.I. Joe” action figure, the company’s first commercial application. Today, Vulcan is an international supplier of springs for a wide range of products from appliances and surgical tools to locomotives and satellites.
“I experienced Alex as a warm, generous, joyful person who was always eager to share his latest fun experience or discovery. He was a man of deep faith, and that faith informed and guided his life. Alex was also a mechanical genius, with a near-instinctive ability to understand materials and mechanical devices, and a quick grasp of how to make them work. I’ve never met anyone else who could do that,” said Alexander Rankin Professor of Mechanical Charles Tucker III, who was the first faculty member to receive the Rankin Professorship. In 2023, Professor Randy Ewoldt also received the Alexander Rankin Professorship.