By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

WARRENVILLE, Ill. — Wayne Zaininger, manager of St. James Farm, said International Harvester retirees are often interested in the farm because of its McCormick family history. At this year’s Homecoming celebration, two of those volunteers assisted with tractor parking and unloading.

The two men were fast friends and had worked together over the years in IH’s manufacturing and resource planning systems. Over the years working in this capacity allowed the two to see some of the world. They recall installing software to run plants in both Mexico and Brazil.

Craig Smillie of Lombard, Ill., worked for 46 years for IH/Navistar, beginning at the Farmall plant in Rock Island. “That is where some of these tractors here were made,” he added. “I worked there from 1963 to 1967, I was a drill press operator.”
Smillie retired in May 2009, thr
ee years after his friend, Neal Conroy. “He left me to work alone,” Smillie joked.

He still keeps some of his IH memories alive with the memorabilia he has collected over the years. Smillie has shelves full of IH literature, which he explains a lot of belonged to his father. Smillie was actually a third-generation IH employee – both his father and grandfather worked for IH.
“Dad was also in electronics; he worked there for 38 years and started after the war. Grandfather was in the foundry.”

Conroy, also from Lombard, started with the company in 1973. “I came from the Standard Oil technical field to the Ag group,” he explained.

He left to join the trucking finance section just a month before the Ag Group was sold to JI Case. “I retired in 2006, just after we implemented our last plant,” he said. “It was a fast 32 years.”

Since retirement the two IH friends have spent a lot of time volunteering at St. James Farm and other DuPage County Preserve properties. Conroy works at the Morton Arboretum and they offer assistance where they can.

On May 28, they were working early before the crowd arrived, helping those bringing in tractors get situated. Anyone taking a few minutes to speak with them learned a lot more about this company.