Earl Walker

In 1952, Earl E. Walker founded Carr Lane Manufacturing Company, now the world’s foremost supplier of tooling components, modular fixturing, drill jig bushings and related workholding products for all areas of manufacturing. Walker received an honorary doctor of science degree in 2002.

As a welder at McDonnell Aircraft Company in the early 1950s, Walker realized there was a market for tools to hold airplane parts as they were being fabricated. He began making these tools in his home garage in Kirkwood, Mo., and his company soon took off.

Today, the Carr Lane Manufacturing Company and its many distributorships have plants and warehouses in several locations around the country, employ more than 325 workers and offer more than 9,700 tooling items for virtually every industry around the world. The company’s catalog includes everything from simple clamps to devices used in nuclear power systems.

Walker and his wife, Myrtle, who is vice president of Carr Lane, are generous supporters of educational, civic and charitable organizations. The Walkers established the Earl E. Walker and Myrtle E. Walker Professor of Engineering in Washington University in St. Louis’ School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1998.

Walker received Washington University’s Robert S. Brookings Award in 1999 for exemplifying the alliance between the University and its community.