All-Weather Friends

As bright, young meteorologists at an air navigational training school in Texas in World War II, Dennis Trettel and John Murray were plagued by phone calls from businessmen for weather information. Contractors, for example, wanted to know how the weather would be for pouring concrete foundations. Trettel and Murray had to keep mum; in war, weather information was a military secret. But the calls gave them an idea for a postwar business. Why not sell special weather forecasts to businessmen?

By last week the two energetic meteorologists, now both 29, had solidly established their weather service in a modest two-room office in Chicago's Loop. They had 40 customers, paying from $100 a man-day for special one-shot jobs to $750 a month on yearly or seasonal contracts.

Wrestlers & Onions. Biggest customer is Chicago's huge Marshall Field & Co. When the U.S. Weather Bureau predicts rain, Field's wants to know what time it will start falling (the Weather Bureau doesn't furnish the information in enough detail). If the rain is forecast for early morning, it will hurt the whole day's business and Field's will kill its special newspaper ads and cancel its call for extra sales help. Murray & Trettel not only tells Field's when the rain will start, but also predicts the first hot spell in spring (good for sales on straw hats, bathing suits, etc.), the first cold snap in fall (fine for furs, winter coats, etc.).

In the same way, Murray & Trettel helps sales or saves money for other customers. Some of them:

P: A wrestling promoter depends on Murray & Trettel to decide whether he should schedule matches for an indoor or outdoor arena.

P: The Illinois highway division counts on the firm to tell it when to get out snow-clearing equipment. When snow was drifting on to highways in one part of the state last month, Murray & Trettel advised against moving equipment up from downstate Illinois to handle the drifts because the wind would soon die down. It did and the state was saved an expensive shift of equipment.

P: Chicago's Brach & Sons, candy manufacturers, whose chocolates spoil in transit when the temperature gets too high, has the forecasters chart the weather along the delivery routes, alert the company when the thermometer hits the danger point.

P: A produce man has Murray & Trettel keep an eye on Texas weather for him when Texas gets ready to harvest its onion crop. If a cold wave is on the way, he buys up all the onions he can, knowing the Texas crop will be delayed long enough to send up the price of onions while he unloads.

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