These activities were halted by the war. Bill became superintendent of Maintenance for Cessna, supervising the construction of numerous buildings and installing the machinery in them during this crisis period of expansion just before and during WWII.

Jack returned to Wichita as an engineer for Boeing mainly involved in heating and pressurization of the B-29 cabins. He was put in charge of constructing a large laboratory to duplicate stratosphere conditions. He remained to supervise high altitude tests and research activities until the war ended. Russ and Jim were younger and volunteered for service in the Navy. Russ became navigator of a troop transport ship. Jim became a Sea Bee, building landing fields and other facilities in the Pacific Islands. He spent several months after the war in Japan.

Almost two years before the end of the war, Boeing set up a planning committee to consider post-war developments for the Wichita facilities.

Jack was on the committee and proposed that Boeing manufacture air conditioning equipment in the Wichita facility. He was asked to prepare detailed plans, which were approved by Boeing management, but vetoed by the Air Force, who owned the buildings.

Several of Jack’s proposals were patentable. Boeing gave him the patent rights which he later sold to Coleman Company, Wichita. This was the beginning of Coleman’s Heating and Air Conditioning Division that Jack managed for eleven years.

During the war, Bill and his sons had agreed by correspondence to go into business together when peace returned. The patent sale permitted Jack to match dollars with Bill which, with the mustering out pay that Russ and Jim contributed, financed the construction of a 1900 sq. ft. shop building and enough equipment to start Kice Metal Products Company – initially a four-way family partnership.

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