Weldon H. Clark

Weldon H. Clark, Jr.Liberty

Mr. Weldon Hawkins Clark, Jr., 75, husband of twenty-six years to Maria Luz Fallorina Clark, passed away Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at Baptist Easley Hospital.

Born in Augusta GA, he was the son of the late Weldon Hawkins Clark, Sr. and the late Florence Pattison Clark. Mr. Clark earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and graduated with high honors. After college, he started his professional carrier working as a gear and bearing expert for Black and Decker which lasted more than 25 years. He later worked for Ford New Holland designing gears for tractors, then as Chief Design Engineer for Columbia Gear in MN. He later retired from Ryobi Motor Products now OWT Industries as an Advance Staff Engineer designing gears and made several trips to China and taught Chinese Engineers on gear design.

Weldon was an outstanding and creative mechanical engineer, holding many patents for various companies. While obtaining his Master’s Degree he studied impact wave theory. He took this knowledge with him into the power tool industry where he was assigned the task of developing governing dynamic equations for impact wrenches and rotary impact drills. Fifty years ago, in 1966, shortly after college, Weldon accomplished this task and presented his paper “Dynamics Analysis of the Pott Mechanism for Electric Impact Wrenches”. The solution to these differential equations went on to become the “How To” in designing impact wrenches for the power tool industry and his methods and equations are still used today.

In addition to being an expert in impact tools, Weldon was a highly influential gear designer. He wrote his own gear design program using Fortran that contained over 20,000 lines of code and 80 subroutines. Weldon has taught his gear design methods both here in the U.S. and overseas. He also worked, at one point, for Ford New Holland designing gears for large construction and agricultural equipment. In the power tool industry, he designed gears for many different consumer products including drills, saws, lawn mowers and string trimmers.

After retirement from OWT 2007, Weldon continued to work in the field of mechanical engineering, either for profit or for fun. He simply loved engineering. He took several trips to China to teach gear design and worked as a consultant for the gear software company, Universal Technical Systems. He continued to work and improve on his programs for rotary impact tools and graciously offered them back at no charge. One of the last projects he completed was a dynamic analysis of a Wankel Engine….probably because he just wanted to and because he could. As Weldon like to say, “It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you run around with a flock of turkeys.”

Mr. Clark was an extremely effective political activist who worked closely with the late Neal Knox in his battles inside and outside the NRA. He served 13 years on the NRA Board of Directors, and was very involved in the political wrangling in his adopted state of Maryland for many years. He was a pivotal force with John Pepper (creator of the Pepper-Popper) in Maryland politics when they teamed up to block anti-rights legislation, defeat prohibitionist politicians, and elect supporters of liberty to the State Legislature.

A brilliant and principled man, a tireless defender of the Second Amendment, and an unyielding lover of liberty, Weldon Clark was one of a kind. He fought valiantly against the foes of freedom. He then relocated to South Carolina, where he naturally dove into local politics with gusto. He had strong beliefs in Democracy, open and participative government and stood steadfastly for American traditions and principles. He didn’t only talk about these things in regular letters to the editor or newsletters, but took action in defense of them on a daily basis. He was admired for his great intellect; Mr. Clark also served Pickens County as Vice Chair for County Planning Commission, member of the Jail Commission, former President, treasurer, and editor of the Pickens County Taxpayers Association, and was a candidate for the Pickens County School Board. He was a member of Holy Cross Catholic Church in Pickens, SC.

He is survived by his devoted wife Maria Luz, a brother Herbert, niece Jennifer A. P. Clark Biggs, step niece Kim Stewart, grandnephew T. Mitchell Robinson, great grandniece Haylee Robinson, step sisters Suzanne Beusse and Carol Scarborough, and step brother F. Douglas Davant.

Funeral services will be held at a later date in Augusta, GA.

The family will receive friends from 5:00 PM until 7:00 PM Saturday, April 2, 2016 at Robinson Funeral Home-Downtown, Easley.

Condolences may be expressed online at www.robinsonfuneralhomes.com or in person at Robinson Funeral Home-Downtown, which is assisting the family.