In Memory

Erick Laine - Class Of 1951 VIEW PROFILE

Erick J. Laine

Erick J. Laine, 87, formerly of Milwaukee, died Tuesday, December 1, 2020, at his home in Olean, NY, after a long illness.

Erkki Johannes Komulainen was born on August 13, 1933, in Petrozavodsk in the Soviet Republic of Karelia, where his Finnish parents, Ernesti and Irma (Salminen) Komulainen, had found work during the Depression. Erkki was nine months old when the family fled Stalin's purges by rowing across Lake Ladoga to Finland, and four years old when his parents rowed across another watery border, from the Canadian shore of the Sault Ste. Marie locks to the U.S. shore.

The family settled in Milwaukee, where Ernesti and Irma had first met in 1927. Erkki started kindergarten without knowing English but learned quickly — an early indication of his native intelligence. At age 13, he paddled the Boundary Waters of Canada for six weeks with three teenage friends. In high school, he skated with the West Allis Speed Skating Club, winning a Silver Skates championship, and set pins at Harmeyer's Bowling Lanes, "double jumping" two alleys at a time.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services had instituted deportation proceedings in 1940 against Erick and his parents as aliens and threats to national security. Ernesti had hired an immigration lawyer to argue their case for citizenship. In 1947, he legally changed the family's names to Ernest, Ida, and Erick Laine. Two years later, Erick's brother Tom was born and became the family's first American citizen. Erick became a U.S. citizen in 1959, his parents the following year.

Erick graduated from Washington High School in 1951 and was admitted to the University of Wisconsin. When the university questioned his in-state tuition because he hadn't been born in the U.S., Erick met with university officials and persuasively explained that he'd been a student in the Wisconsin school system from kindergarten.

At the University of Wisconsin, Erick was a brother and president of Sigma Phi fraternity, a ski jumper on Wisconsin's ski team, and vice-president of his senior class. Erick graduated from the university in 1955 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and was hired by the Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA) as an industrial engineer in ALCOA's New Kensington, Pennsylvania plant.

Erick worked for ALCOA for a quarter-century in positions of increasing responsibility at plants across the Midwest. In 1977, ALCOA sent Erick to Olean to assess one of its subsidiaries, Alcas Cutlery Corporation. Alcas knives made in Olean had long been sold alongside ALCOA's Wear-Ever cookware. The parent company, which was moving away from consumer products, expected that Erick's assessment would precede a sale. Erick, however, saw tremendous potential in the small knife company and led a leveraged management buyout in 1982.

As president, CEO, and Chairman of Alcas (which became CUTCO in 2009), Erick oversaw the company's transformation into the largest cutlery company in North America. This son of a union man negotiated a new labor contract, ending decades of strikes, and instituted profit-sharing. Even as the company grew, Erick greeted every person who worked at Alcas by name — and asked after family members by name, as well. He retired from CUTCO on January 1, 2008.

Erick was especially committed to supporting higher education. At Alcas, he established college scholarships for the children of employees. He funded scholarships in his parents' names at the University of Wisconsin, helped create a Jamestown Community College campus in Olean, and served as a trustee for Alfred and St. Bonaventure universities.

Erick was proud of his Finnish heritage. Through Erick's efforts, family ties were re-established between Finland and the United States. He discovered a novella that his father had written after the family's escape from Russia and had it translated into English. A Grave in Karelia is recognized as a rare contemporary account of the Karelian genocide. When Erick bought a lake cottage, he added a log boathouse and sauna. Visitors surprised to see steaming bodies running from the sauna into the lake were told, "That's Erick Laine. He's a Finn."

Sisu is a Finnish word that is often used to describe the Finnish national character. The word doesn't have a good English equivalent, but it can be seen as a combination of integrity, courage, and tenacity that is passionately and purposefully directed. Erick Laine lived with great Sisu.

As his family gathered around him to sing his favorite skiing and Sigma Phi songs, he gave his paddle one last, strong pull and crossed to the other shore.

Erick married Nancy Herrick in 1955; they had four children together. He married Marianne Letro in 1979. Erick is survived by his wife Marianne; children Kristen (Jim Collins), Erick, Jr. (Susan), Peter (Constance Ensner), Christopher (Ulli Valentini); brother Tom (Aleta), nieces Joanna (Vik Penna) and Sarah; 8 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren; and extended family in the U.S. and Finland.

Arrangements are under the direction of Letro-McIntosh-Spink Funeral Home in Olean, NY. There will not be a funeral service, but a celebration of Erick's life is being planned for a future date.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/jsonline/name/erick-laine-obituary?id=3553181





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