Frederick Pomeroy Palen (April 20, 1872 – December 2, 1933) was a prominent shipping executive.

Biography

Frederick Palen was born in

Jenningsville, Pennsylvania Jenningsville is an unincorporated community in Wyoming County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, ...

on April 20, 1872, and educated at

Monticello, New York Monticello ( ) is a village located in Thompson, Sullivan County, within the Catskills region of New York, United States. The population was 7,173 at the 2020 census. It is the seat for the Town of Thompson and the county seat of Sullivan Count ...

. He went to

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering. Palen took a job as a draughtsman for the

Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the largest industrial employer in Virginia, and sole designer, builder and refueler of United States Navy aircraft carriers and one of two providers of U.S. Navy ...

, became chief engineer of the Company in 1906, and general manager in 1912; in 1915, he was made a vice president. After acknowledging before a Senate panel in 1929 that he was responsible for employing William B. Shearer as an observer at the 1927 Geneva arms control conference, however, Palen resigned his position. In March 1930, Palen became president of the Primrose Publishing Corporation, which published ''The Marine Journal''. He was also involved with the creation of the

Merchant Marine Act of 1928 The Merchant Marine Act of 1928 (also called the "Jones-White Act") is a United States law to stimulate private shipbuilding in the United States and to assist the merchant marine financially in being competitive in the emerging global market. It ...

Personal life

Palen married Lina Mayo in 1906, and had one son, Frederick. Palen died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

on December 2, 1933, at the Rockefeller Research Institute in New York.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palen, Frederick 1933 deaths 1870s births Cornell University College of Engineering alumni Deaths from pneumonia in New York City