Patrick P. Lee

Patrick Lee's father was in the U.S. Navy when he met his future wife at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. After they married, Lee's father brought his French bride home to America. Shortly after Lee's birth in Virginia in 1938, his father was shipped overseas. His mother decided to take her newborn son to Paris to meet her side of the family, but World War II erupted shortly after their arrival, engulfing France and preventing Lee and his mother from leaving. For nearly seven years, they lived with his grandparents in Paris. "This was a very difficult time for me and my mother and her family," says Lee. "War is not a Hollywood movie. It was very challenging for my mother to try and raise her son in the middle of a war, but she had survivor instincts. She was hardworking, disciplined, and loyal."

Lee's mother was recruited for the French resistance because she and her sister were identical twins. When Lee was six, the Germans learned that he was an American citizen. "My mother knew she had to get me out of Paris," he says. "My mother's twin sister had a daughter just six months younger than I. It was decided that the two of us were to be sent to a small village outside Orleans for safekeeping."

It was a frightening, dangerous time for Lee and his cousin. Allied forces were bombing the area, and German soldiers went through towns, killing villagers at will. In addition to the perilous environment, food and medicine were lacking.

The year the children fled to Orleans, Lee's father was killed in the Guadalcanal naval battle. "The loss of my father, a man I never really knew, was devastating for me and my mother," says Lee. "When the war ended in 1945, my mother and I returned to America and lived with my father's cousins in Nebraska City. We could've stayed with my grandparents. My grandfather was a successful lawyer in Paris with investments in Madagascar. The whole family immigrated to his land holdings after the war, but my mother wanted to raise me as an American. We crossed the Atlantic in December and arrived in New York City on Christmas Eve. I can still remember the toy airplane my mother bought me to celebrate the holiday."

The war years in France were so harrowing for Lee and his mother that they never talked about it once they returned to America. Lee grew up suppressing his memories as much as possible; to this day, it is difficult for him to recall his early childhood.

Shortly after arriving in New York, Lee and his mother boarded a crowded train filled with returning GIs. They were met in Omaha by relatives of Lee's father. His mother, wanting him to become an American as quickly as possible, refused to speak French to him at home. "The kids in school didn't know what to do with me at first," he says. "It wasn't an easy start for me, but I picked up English pretty fast and concentrated on my studies."

Lee settled in and made friends. He played basketball, baseball, and hockey, and he enjoyed hunting and fishing. He liked imagining things he could manufacture. At the age of nine, he tried to make a card shuffler out of a cigar box and tin cans. "It didn't work well," he recalls.

School and getting a good education were highly important to Lee's mother. She insisted on sending him to the best Catholic schools, and Lee has never forgotten one nun who assigned tremendous amounts of math homework each night. Even Lee's mother thought it was excessive. But today, Lee appreciates that teacher's challenge because it taught him at an early age to be disciplined, a trait he feels benefits him.

"Jesuit schools were best for me," he says. "In addition to giving me a well-rounded education, they teach a code of conduct that makes you responsible for your actions. They also teach you to look at both sides of issues and see things in a balanced way."

During his last two years of high school, Lee worked for three or four hours each day in a lab at Eli Lilly and Company, where he helped make animal serum. "There was no doubt I would go to college," he says. "My mother had a college education, and I was eligible for a war orphan scholarship, which helped tremendously."

Lee had thought seriously about studying law, but he felt that it would be more practical to be an engineer. With a recession going on, he decided to complete his education as quickly as possible and get to work.

Lee attended St. Louis University, majoring in aeronautical engineering. While at SLU, he worked with a company that was reassessing real estate in St. Louis, but mostly he concentrated on getting his degree in three years. He went to school year-round with no summers off. "Back then, we were in a hurry to graduate; in a hurry to find a job; in a hurry to buy a car, to get married, and have children; in a hurry to buy a house," he says. "In the 1950s, we were just in a hurry."

Lee knew he did not want to work for a large corporation for any real length of time, but after graduating in 1960, he joined McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis as an engineer. A few years later, he went to work for a small New York manufacturing firm.

In 1966, Lee invested his $2,500 in savings and purchased a machine shop. In his spare time, he worked on developing new products and took out a number of patents. One was for industrial shock absorbers and a new hydraulic cylinder. "Inventions are just problem-solving for me," he says. "My best invention was that hydraulic cylinder. Cessna Hydraulics had a monopoly, and it was a challenge to break it."

In 1967, Lee founded Enidine, Inc., which eventually became the world's premier manufacturer of industrial and aerospace shock absorption and vibration isolation products. In the 1960s, America was embracing automation, which meant making equipment and machines work faster and safer with less maintenance. New products in hydraulic, pneumatics, and electrical mechanical components were proliferating, and it was an ideal time for Lee's inventions. Making the jump from inventor to businessman was a trial-and-error process for Lee, but he surrounded himself with good people and quickly learned how to run a business.

Lee always felt manufacturing would grow in Europe and Asia. In 1968, he got a license to produce Enidine products in Europe for a British company. By 1976, Enidine had its own independent distributors throughout Europe and Japan. By the mid-1980s, Enidine had established its own manufacturing and distribution companies in Japan, Korea, and eight European countries. In 1994, Lee formed International Motion Controls (IMC) to reflect Enidine's expansion into a variety of motion-control products. By 2007, foreign sales composed 65 percent of sales at IMC, which employed 2,000 people worldwide.

IMC was a success thanks to its associates who worked diligently to make it a recognized international company, says Lee, who was particularly influenced by his outside independent directors, especially Warren Cutting. "Warren taught me the complete joy of honesty of life," says Lee. "If you asked his opinion about somebody you found questionable, he would change the subject. He would never speak badly about another person. But most of all, he had a passion for philanthropy. He believed in giving back."

On a more personal level, Lee defines success as "having the ability to live your dream, whatever it is, surrounded by your family and friends who care for you. It's also the ability to give back to the sources that helped shape your life."

Lee believes in treating others with respect and kindness. When offering advice to young people, he says, "Life is an adventure. Enjoy new opportunities and the new people you meet throughout your life. Decide what you are good at, but understand that your capabilities will change over your lifetime. Startups should be done early since maturity and risk-taking do not necessarily go hand in hand. Work hard, but know your strengths. Surround yourself with trusted associates."