Tadeusz Sendzimir

Tadeusz Sendzimir (originally Sędzimir, July 15, 1894, Lwów – September 1, 1989, Jupiter, Florida) of Ostoja coat of arms was a Polish engineer and inventor of international renown with 120 patents in mining and metallurgy, 73 of which were awarded to him in the United States.

His name has been given to revolutionary methods of processing steel and metals used in every industrialized nation of the world. Sendzimir was a holder of the Polish Golden Cross of Merit (from 1938), the Bessemer Gold Medal (from 1965) and the Brinell Gold Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in (from 1974). On the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty he was one of those prominent immigrants honored for their contributions to America.

In 1990 Poland's large steel plant in Kraków (formerly the Lenin Steelworks) was renamed to Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks. The AIST Tadeusz Sendzimir Memorial Medal was established in the same year.

Sendzimir was the eldest son of Kazimierz Sędzimir belonging to the Clan of Ostoja and Wanda Jaskółowska. Fascinated by machinery as a child, he built his own camera at the age of 13. After studying at the 4th Classical Gymnasium (Gimnazjum Klasyczne) in Lwów he entered the Politechnika Lwowska. However when Lwów was captured by Russian troops the Polytechnic Institute was closed and he moved to Kiev. There he worked in auto services and in the Russian-American Chamber of commerce where he learned Russian and English.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 forced Sendzimir to flee to Vladivostok, then to Shanghai, where Sendzimir built the first factory in China which produced screws, nails and wire. Financial support was provided by the Russian-Asian Bank, at the time headed by Poles (Władysław Jezierski and Zygmunt Jastrzębski).

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