Edward L. Allman was the youngest of five children born to Charles T. and Mamie Allman of Poplar Station, Baltimore County, MD. He enlisted in the Navy on his 17th birthday and was selected to the Navy V-12 Officer Training Program. He completed the 4 year wartime accelerated aeronautical engineering course in 2 years and 8 months at the University of South Carolina and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Commissioned as an Ensign USNR after the end of World War II, he was released from active duty and returned to Georgia Tech, where he received a degree in Industrial Engineering.
After a short stint as engineer at the Martin Aircraft Co., Ed became an Industrial Engineer at American Standard in Baltimore, where he met Betty Jane Cutshall, the secretary of the personnel manager. Ed and Betty married on March 3, 1951 and that same year he started working at Bendix Radio--first as an industrial engineer, then as manager of manufacturing research, and then as manager of computer manufacturing. Ed joined the Daven Division of General Mills as chief industrial engineer in 1960. Shortly thereafter, he was sent to Manchester, NH, as Plant Manager of the Daven resistor factory, which employed 600 people.
After Daven was bought by McGraw-Edison in 1965, Ed was appointed President of the Daven Division of Thomas A. Edison Industries. Soon after, the New Jersey and Manchester operations were combined in a new factory at Grenier Field Airport. Under McGraw-Edison, Ed served first as president of the Edison Electronics Division, then president of the Commercial Development Division, and finally VP of Business Development for the corporation in Chicago.
In 1980 Ed, Ben Moore and Otto Riss purchased Edison Electronics, which they renamed Armtec Industries. Armtec was purchased by the British company Bestobell Ltd. in 1982, and in 1985 Bestobell was taken over by Meggitt PLC. Ed was appointed Managing Director of the Aerospace and Defence operations, which consisted of 7 companies in England and 4 in the US. Ed retired in 1990 but stayed on as Chairman and President of Meggitt USA until 1993.
Ed served on many boards, including the Manchester Institute, Amoskeag Industries, Canterbury Shaker Viilage, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Elliot Hospital, Amoskeag Savings Bank, and Brookside Congregational Church, and he served as Vice Chairman of Amoskeag Bank Shares. He also was a long serving member of the Charles Edison Fund, Newark NJ--an organization devoted to preserving the memory of Thomas Edison. He was also a member of William Loeb's Union Leader Advisory Board. Ed was a trustee of St. Anselm College and a charter member of the NH Public Employees Labor Relations Board. He was honored by St. Anselm with an honorary doctorate, by the College of William and Mary as an Honorary Alumnus and by Georgia Tech as a member of their Engineering Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Sons of the American Revolution.
He is survived by his son Steven Allman of Canterbury, NH, and his wife Jacquie, his daughter Gail Lee Cole of Bainbridge Island, WA, and her husband Tom, and by grandchildren Samantha, Katherine, Eli, and Mathias Allman and Cora and Abraham Cole.
The funeral service was held on Monday, June 24, 2013 in Brookside Congregational Church, Elm St, Manchester. Burial with military honors followed in NH State Veterans Cemetery, 110 Daniel Webster Highway, Boscawen.
Memorial donations may be made to Brookside Congregational Church, 2013 Elm St, Manchester, NH 03104.