make delicate instruments and expanded its line of calculating products, catering to the needs of scientists, businesses and industry. Carl M. Friden died in 1945, leaving the company in turmoil. His heirs and company trustees turned to Johnson for his vision and expertise. Johnson, a highly experienced executive, was named president of the Friden Company. As he had done with the American Forest Products Corporation, Johnson turned the reasonably profitable enterprise into a multimillion-dollar outfit. Aggressive sales and progressive research and development were the mottoes for the energized Friden Company. Not content with simple success, Johnson was determined to expand the Friden Company worldwide. By the mid-1950s the organization had moved into complete office machine outfitting, producing adding machines, typesetting machines, weight scales and postage meters. Johnson had a fight on his hands trying to convince his complacent board members to move into the international market. Eventually, he won out and headed to Europe, opening offices in the Netherlands and Belgium. European sales surged and offices sprung up in Italy, England and West Germany. Johnson found himself a world traveler as he made the rounds of the Friden family of companies. Friden grew and profited, becoming well known for its punched-tape typewriters, including the iconic Flexowriter. Years later, in 1963, the company was sold to the Singer Company, which had become a billion-dollar worldwide conglomerate. Johnson and the Friden board felt Singer had the experience and the capital to keep Friden expanding. Seven years later, the American Forest Products Corporation was sold to the Bendix Corporation. Johnson had been the president of both Friden and AFPC for nearly 50 years. Personal life and legacy Walter Johnson met Mabel Brady at his stationery store in Modesto. They were married in 1914, shortly before Johnson's graduation from law school. They had three children together, Gloria, Jeneal and Walter, the latter being born in 1924. As a young couple, Mabel and Walter Johnson had the good fortune to be living in San Francisco as the Panama-Pacific Exposition was being planned and built. The expo was to be a grand celebration of the opening of the new Panama Canal, but would also let the world know that San Francisco had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Strewn over what had been a marshy shore, some thirty palaces of science, art and culture, statehood, and industry sprung into