Ralph Stewart in 1948
Ralph Stewart had a long and successful career as an engineer, but his other love has always been photography and journalism. As a high school student in Helena, Stewart worked for the local paper, working his way from carrier to mail room worker to press worker. As a University of Arkansas engineering student, he worked for The Arkansas Engineer, the student magazine of the College of Engineering.
Stewart entered the electrical engineering program at the U of A in 1942, then left to join the Air Force. After spending several years flying B 17s, he returned in 1946 and finished his degree in 1949. He met his wife at the university, and they have two children.
Stewart began working for The Arkansas Engineer as a photographer, and it was through this position that he got to know George Stocker, the dean of the college at the time. Stewart asked the dean if he could use the college’s darkroom to develop and print photos for the magazine, as well as for the university yearbook. Stocker replied, “Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you use it, but it’s for you alone. I don’t ever want to catch you in there with a girl.”
Stewart replied, “You’ve got my word.” He kept his word, and eventually became the editor of the magazine. He has fond memories of the time he spent in the magazine office in the student union, though running the magazine was a big challenge for Stewart, a full time student who also had a job and spent a year as president of Theta Tau.
In Stewart’s senior year, the magazine almost went broke. Stewart had to scramble to get his last issue out, making do with a single color on the cover and paying for a lot of the photography supplies himself. In the end, however, he was involved with sixteen issues of the quarterly magazine and values the time and effort he devoted to the magazine. “One of the highlights of my college days was working for The Arkansas Engineer,” he said.
After college, Stewart was working for an engineering consulting company when a friend asked if he was interested in a job at a new company: the Martin Company. Stewart wasn’t sure. “They had only one customer, the government,” he remembers. “They had a single contract and it was only good for five years. I said ‘What’s going to happen in five years?’”
After talking it over with his wife, Stewart turned down the job offer, but the Martin Company didn’t give up on him. Two weeks later, he got a call from someone in the employment office, who asked how much it would take to get to accept. Stewart quoted what he thought was an outrageous amount, but the recruiter responded, “Can you be here in two weeks?”
The Martin Company eventually became Lockheed Martin, and Stewart worked there until he retired 25 years ago. He was the manager of the facilities engineering department, where he oversaw over 100 engineers. His department designed everything from labs to sewers for the company, and built up such a reputation that Lockheed Martin often sent him to plants in other cities.
These days, Stewart lives on a ranch near Denver Colorado with his wife, and he still enjoys taking photographs.