Delmar F. Bloem
Delmar
F. Bloem graduated
from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, with a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, in June 1968.
Del, as he came to be known, then joined the U.S. Army where he served in San Francisco and Korea as First Lieutenant in the Air Defense Artillery until 1971 before doing an MBA at the University of Chicago.
Del then joined FMC Corp. and held various positions until 1977 when he became Manager of Management Information Systems in the Environmental Division. Here, he was responsible for development and control of computer-based management information systems in a $40 million division.
In 1979, Del was appointed New Products Manager, Environmental Equipment Division, where he was responsible for the development and marketing of new products for wastewater treatment (including product specification, design, development, initial production and market introduction of new products).
Del
Bloem meets Bob Simenson and they found ICS Medical
Del met Bob at FMC
in 1977. Right from the beginning, the two men got on well and complemented each other. Together, in
1981, they helped close down the FMC Environmental Equipment Division.
The
company is 10 years old and
Del’s still swamped with work.
Also in 1981, they came across the medical division of Instrumentation and Control Systems (ICS) – and bought it (along with three employees). Del was the technology person, and Bob was the business manager. Both were people persons.
From 1981 to 2000 as President, Del proved himself to be a far-sighted innovator and helped build the company into a market leader in computer-based ENG/VNG and EP instrumentation and services for otoneurologic diagnosis.
By 2000, the company employed approximately 30 people covering research and development, manufacturing, marketing and administration.
ICS Medical was sold to GN ReSound in 2000
By
2000, Bob was nearing retirement age and so, when GN ReSound made an offer they couldn’t refuse, it
was easy to take the decision to sell.
On January 1, 2001, ICS Medical joined Madsen Electronics, Danplex, and Hortmann under the GN Otometrics “umbrella”. Del Bloem continued as CEO of the Schaumburg division until his retirement in 2003.
Not
resting on his laurels
Active in local community activities through most
of his working life, Del continues to serve, for example, in a variety of posts for Youth Guidance,
a social service agency serving the public schools in Chicago. In 1992, he had been given the Man of
the Year award by the Better Boys Foundation for mentoring inner city youth. He was also voted Youth
Athletics Man of the Year at Lake Park High School for coaching pre-high school wrestling teams.
Married since 1969, Del has three children and two granddaughters. He still finds time to work out and to travel extensively – in 2004, the Bloems visited New Zealand and Tanzania, and they spent a month in S.E. Asia in the spring of 2005.
Publications
Bloem,
DF. The Role of Electronystagmography, Hearing Aid Journal, October, 1982, p7-8.
Bloem, DF. Slow Phase Velocity Computation in ENG Testing, Hearing Instruments, August, 1983, p13-14.
Bloem, DF. An Overview of Rotary Testing. ENG Report, July, 1989.
Bloem, DF. Pursuit Testing with Computers - A Status Report. ENG Report, February, 1988.
Bloem, DF. Perspective on Eye Movement Testing. ENG Report, March, 1986.
Bloem, DF. Precision in Caloric Stimulation. ENG Report, October, 1984.
Bloem, DF. Computer-Based Electronystagmography. In NeuroPractice, San Diego, CA, October, 1994.