"Sturgeon fought in Europe during World War II, flying on a B-17 bomber, which was shot down over Germany in 1944. He managed to parachute out of the plane and was found by German farmers. After receiving care at a POW hospital, he was transferred to a POW camp in Poland, where he spent the last year of the war."
"We had enough work to keep the shop going because we're pretty small, said Kathy Latak, who owns the business with her brother Jim Sturgeon. We've been talking about retirement and we've been talking for several years about an ending date. And we decided since the business was just completing its 70th year, that seemed to make sense. That was a good time. The shop closed on Sept. 30."
Crown Heating and Sheet Metal operated as a family-owned metal fabrication company founded by Jim Sturgeon Sr. in El Cerrito in 1954 and relocated to Gilman Street in Berkeley in 1960. The shop closed on Sept. 30 after 70 years when owners Kathy Latak and her brother Jim Sturgeon chose to retire. The business maintained sufficient work and did not close due to competition from computer-aided fabrication. Latak and Sturgeon decided not to sell the company to preserve its family character. Founder Jim Sturgeon Sr. survived being shot down in 1944, spent a year as a POW, resumed a sheet-metal career, and died in 2022 at age 101.
Read at www.berkeleyside.org
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