Frank Mohn
Frank Mohn was one of Norway's most successful businessmen and industry leaders. He was born in Bergen on 29 April 1916, the son of Sigurd Mohn (1885-1959) and his wife Margrete Oettinger (1893–1985). After graduating from the Bergens Handelsgymnasium in 1934, he established the family company Frank Mohn in 1938 without much in the way of business capital.
The war, however, led to a break in the business. Frank Mohn's most important war effort took place in Britain. He passed through the 1942-43 Officers' Training Course in Scotland and, after an injury, led the Royal Norwegian Slip and Repair Shops in Buckie between 1943 and 1945. The slip maintained the Norwegian fleet and one of the "customers" was Shetlands-Larsen (Leif Larsen, the Shetland Bus hero). |
The Norwegian Slip in Frank Mohn's time
After the war, he returned to Norway and began working with ship pumps and oil spill equipment. The idea was born when a worker came and told that his father and brother had died in a pump room. The tragedy allowed Mohn to see it as his life task to create pumps that could prevent accidents. The need proved to be enormous. The success transformed the business into a large-scale international network as FRAMO, headquartered in Bergen, which employs more than 1100 employees. Subdivisions were established in the United States (Texas), the Netherlands, Singapore and Japan. The company is now part of the Alfa Laval Group. |
Frank Mohn married firstly, on 8 May 1942 Eva Wigum daughter of Harald Wigum and his wife Ellen Marie Jahnsen. Their twin sons, Trond and Stein, were born in Buckie on 3 April 1943. Their daughter, Marit, was born in 1946 after the family returned to Norway. Eva Mohn died on 6 Feburary 1982. Frank Mohn remarried in 1993, Berrit Ravndal. He died in Bergen on 3 June 2002.
Trond Mohn (below) lives in Bergen and is one of Norway's richest people and a noted philanthropist. But....he was born in Buckie. |