Robert Reppel, founder of Reppel Steel and Supply Company, entered semi-retirement a few months before his death in September, 1976, and turned over management of the steel fabricating and erecting firm to his son-in-law, Tom Tracy. Reppel’s life was a triumphant struggle against misfortunes that would have defeated men of lesser courage and determination.

In his later years he could still recall vividly the boom of World War I cannon over his native Alsace, the guttural commands of German sergeants during his forced service in the Kaiser’s army, his immigration to Canada after the Armistice of 1918, his long battle to regain his health, and the desperate struggle to feed his family during the Depression years in Phoenix.

Reppel achieved business and financial success, and he did it against overwhelming odds. His is a classic story in the “only in America” tradition.

Born March 3, 1900, at Selestat, Alsace — a French province then under German domination — he was the son of Joseph and Melanie Bretel Reppel. His father was a baker in Paris before establishing his own bakery at Selestat, and young Robert grew up in the family trade. The bakery still is in operation in the same building now owned by the fourth generation of the family.

Robert was 14 when the Germans invaded Belgium and France to launch World War I, and the battles rages near his native town for four years. In the fall of 1918 he was drafted into the German army and underwent machine gun training at Mainz before being sent to Sedan and then to Belgium during the weeks just before the November 11 Armistice.

An avid French sympathizer, he was a reluctant draftee and once spent three days in a German guardhouse for insubordination.

When the fighting ended, Reppel stayed in Alsace only long enough to make arrangements for his immigration to Canada, where he arrived in October, 1919. He went first to an older brother’s home in Saskatchewan, and in 1920 moved to Peoria, Illinois.

Reppel worked in a Peoria bakery until 1924, when a worsening asthma condition forced him to move to Gunnison, Colorado. At Gunnison he baked for the Western State College cafeteria, picked up his interrupted schooling, and then borrowed money to start his own bakery there.

In 1926 he became a United States citizen, and on July 3 of that year he married Bertha McDowell at Canon City, Colorado.

Just when it seemed he was becoming established, his health problem forced him to move again — this time to Phoenix. It was in 1927 that he arrived in the Arizona capital with a doctor’s admonition that he must work outdoors if he hoped to regain his health.

Reppel found a job as a pick and shovel laborer on an Eagan Construction Company crew which was building a new wing on the old St. Joseph’s Hospital. Because of his willingness to learn, the foreman soon assigned him to steel erection duties. It was the beginning of a new career that was to bring Reppel to prominence in the Arizona construction industry.

He helped with the steel fabrication at Phoenix Union High School and many other building, and when Eagan got the contract for an ice plant addition at Glendale, Reppel was made supervisor of the job.

Then the Depression set in, construction ground to a halt, and Reppel found himself among the unemployed. He went from odd job to odd job— including a dawn-to-dusk, seven-days-a-week stint with a dairy that paid him only $50 per month.

In 1934 Reppel took out a building contractor’s license, but construction was still in the deep freeze. Then came 1941 and military construction work in California — a 1942 job erecting steel for Miami Copper Company— and 18 months working for the mines at Cananea, Mexico.

When World War II ended, central Arizona construction boomed. Air conditioning offered tremendous opportunities, and Reppel opened a sheet metal shop at 24th Street and East McDowell in Phoenix to fabricate coolers for a host of residential and commercial construction projects.

By 1953 Reppel was moving back into heavy steel fabrication and erection, and he was operating two companies: Alpine Heating and Cooler and Reppel Steel Erection Company.

In 1954 he combined his businesses under one corporate name, Reppel Steel and Supply Company. He moved his operation in 1956 to its present site on East Madison Street, between 31st and 32nd Streets. Two years later, with his business still expanding at a rapid rate, he bought the adjoining lot.

Reppel Steel and Supply completed its present office building in 1973. With his annual business at more than $8 million, with a branch in Tucson, and with 130 employees, Reppel entered semi-retirement early in 1976. He maintained an office in the company headquarters building in Phoenix and continued as a consultant in the firm’s statewide construction operations until the time of his death.

Hard work was Robert Reppel’s way of life, but he put aside the cares of business occasionally to enjoy two long-time hobbies— deep sea fishing and rock collecting. At least once a year he took a fishing vacation to Mazatlan or Guaymas, Mexico, and he got away frequently for bottom fishing at San Carlos, Mexico. Weekends often found him scouring the desert and foothills with other rock hounds, and he put together a creditable mineral collection over the years. When he wasn’t fishing or tramping the out-of-doors, he could usually be found working in the garden of his home, 4222 East Indianola, Phoenix.

Reppel was a member of Elks Lodge 335 for 23 years and attend the Creighton Methodist Church in Phoenix.

He never forgot his European roots, and made two trips back to his Alsace birthplace — in 1964 and again in 1971.

Robert and Bertha Reppel had three children: Melaine, Mrs. Andy Corrao of Tempe; Edith, Mrs. Tom Tracy of Phoenix; and Roberta, Mrs. Richard Heathcote of Newark, California. Bertha, who was his business associate and booster for 35 years, died in Phoenix in 1963.

A man of friendly warmth, unquenchable enthusiasm, and unusual executive ability, Robert Reppel was held in high esteem by his colleagues in the Arizona construction industry. He overcame the calamities of war, Depression and illness to achieve notable business success in the new land which he made his own.