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Morse's first big financial success was frozen orange juice, which he discovered how to make with his high-vacuum process. He helped set up what is now the Minute Maid Corp. in 1945, and after some early marketing troubles, started the frozen-orange-juice boom. Minute Maid grew into the No. 1. U.S. frozen-orange-juice company, with 30% of the market and 1953 sales of $36.4 million. Morse sold National Research's interest in Minute Maid, but he still retains a royalty agreement that will eventually net National Research more than $5,000,000 on its total research cost of $150,000.
With Minute Maid booming, Morse lost no time exploring other fields. National Research went into instant coffee (Holiday Brands, Inc..) and antibiotic drugs, now produces 90% of the drying equipment used by U.S. penicillin makers. For the electronics industry National Research developed high-vacuum machines for TV and radar-tube production.
Into the Crucible. But the most promising field of all is heavy metallurgy, where high vacuum can be used to cast and refine everything from steel to super-pure alloys for jet engines. National Research, which set up Vacuum Metals Corp. to do the basic refining job itself, recently sold a 50% interest to Crucible Steel Co. for 25,000 shares of Crucible stock and $500,000 worth of equipment.
With all its success, Physicist Morse's National Research Corp. has still to pay its first cash dividend to its 1,133 stockholders. Though profits this year should jump past the $800,000 mark with revenues of nearly $5,000,000, the company will plow 50% of its income back into research, use the rest for other projects. Morse's stockholders are not likely to complain. Since 1940, National Research's original 1,000 shares have been split 150 times. The stock now sells at $23.50 a share, making an original $1 investment worth $3,525 on the open market.
*Named after Dr. Wilhelm Kroll, who discovered the present method of refining titanium while working for the U.S. Bureau of Mines (TIME, Aug. 11, 1952).