EPCHS Alum In The Spotlight: Rongner Bergmark, Class Of 1962

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — Rongner Bergmark has reached the epitome of consistency in the business world, having owned the same company for more than a half-century.

The president of Franklen Equipment, Inc. since he purchased the far south suburban-based company in 1971, Bergmark has said none of his long-standing success would be possible without Evergreen Park Community High School, where he graduated from in 1962.

“I’ve been blessed,” Bergmark said. “I never made it to college, but what I learned at EP is how to study and how to concentrate. I have nothing but fond memories of living there and going to school there.”

Bergmark was an involved student in the early days of EPCHS, competing on the chess team, going out for wrestling and joining the Senior Prom committee in which he would make popcorn during home football games to raise money for prom.

But it was his passion for cars that led Bergmark to land his first job at an industrial corporation on Chicago’s South Side.

“I made air cleaners for the Model T Ford,” he said. “I worked in the lab, got to wear a lab coat, and a couple of their engineers took me under their wing.”

Studying old books on formulas, he said, helped pave the way for what would become an extended career in the measurement business.

“I know a lot about very little,” he said. “But I know exactly what a gallon is, and how you measure that gallon.”

That mechanical skill came in handy when he landed his next job at Rockwell Manufacturing in 1968.

“Rockwell was in the measurement meter business,” Bergmark said. “Then, when my boss found out I was mechanical, I was allowed to troubleshoot and help fix things.”

But the Rockwell job included quite a bit of travel, and as Bergmark’s family began to grow, he was looking to find a job more stationary. He began working for Franklen as a sales representative in 1970 and bought the company from its original owners, Frank Blaze and Len Pollack, a year later.

“The business I have now, we are in the measurement business,” he said. “We sell the devices that measure the crude oil in the refineries. If it’s a liquid, we can measure it. When people have measuring problems, they come to us.”

It’s a skill that’s stood the test of time, and all three of Bergmark’s children - Tracey, Earnest and Christopher - have worked for him for years.

“My daughter is the oldest, and she is running the company now,” Bergmark said. “At 81, I don’t do as much anymore, but when some of the older equipment comes in, I’ll look at it, identify it and find what it can be replaced with.”

Keeping Franklen as the family business for generations to come is something important to him.

“Most companies like mine don’t last past the first generation,” he said. “One of my goals is to show my children the goose that lays the golden eggs. Not a lot of places do what we do, and not a lot of people know how to do it.”

“I’m in a position where if I die tomorrow, the company is going to go on,” he added. “But if not for the teachers at EPCHS, I would have never made it.”