Ruben Hartmeister was a man of invention, from a chewing-gum scraper attached to a broom to aluminum beer cans for Coors Brewing Co.
An engineer and machinist, Hartmeister, who died Sept. 5 at age 96, helped Coors make the machinery to manufacture aluminum cans to replace the tin-plate ones. Coors made its first aluminum cans in 1959.
The Golden-based brewery sent Hartmeister to Germany, Switzerland and Italy to learn about aluminum casting, wrote Gene Child in an an article about Hartmeister for the Golden Landmark Association.
“After two months he returned with seven suitcases filled with samples, as well as a daily diary of his observations,” Child wrote.
Coors was the first American brewer to make aluminum cans, said Hartmeister’s son Mark of Golden.
Ruben Hartmeister was usually at a half trot, “leaning forward as if he was walking into the wind,” said Mark Hartmeister.
The elder Hartmeister’s mind was always whirring with an idea of something he could invent – often writing down and sketching things in a 5-inch-by- 7-inch notebook he carried everywhere.
Hartmeister was a Golden city councilman for 14 years and a leader in the move to save the historic Astor House Hotel.
He was “high-energy but a plain, hardworking man, who seldom wore a coat and tie,” said Child, who also was involved in saving the Astor.
Hartmeister invented a tool to trim Venetian blinds so they would fit any window, and an automatic flower-pot maker.
His chewing-gum scraper, which would attach to a broom, “died an undistinguished death,” according to the book “A Catalyst for Change,” by Beth Mende Conny.
She wrote that Hartmeister was always scribbling and sketching ideas and that if he didn’t have the notebook, he wrote on packing slips, matchbook covers or anything handy.
Hartmeister rarely took vacations and worked 10 to 16 hours a day at Coors, his son said.
Hartmeister rarely drank a Coors, or any other alcohol, Mark Hartmeister said.
Ruben Jonathan Hartmeister was born was born to German immigrant parents in Altamont, Ill., on Dec 11, 1910. He didn’t speak English until he went to grade school.
He earned his civil-engineering degree at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Ind.
Hartmeister married Ruth Snyder Stahl on May 8, 1935.
He was a machinist die maker at a ball-bearing plant in Indiana during World War II.
After a vacation to Colorado, he and his wife decided to move to Golden. He got a job in west Denver where they manufactured artillery shells.
Hartmeister and his brothers then opened a machine shop here making molds and tools for Gates Rubber Co., before Hartmeister went to Coors. He was there almost 21 years, retiring in 1975.
In addition to his son, he is survived by another son, David Hartmeister of Denver, and daughters Julie Whitmer of Golden and Susan Cornell of Phoenix.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
