While managing Hoffman Engineering's rapid growth, Reuben Kravik found time to serve on a panel that launched Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids. He also co-founded the Anoka County's economic development partnership to attract new businesses.
"He is an important part of the Anoka County fabric," said County Commissioner Dan Erhart, who worked with him on the partnership board. "He was very generous with his time, expertise and knowledge....He was key in looking at and helping structure and finance small start-up companies that were located in Anoka County."
Kravik, 93, died on Sept. 11 from dementia complications in Mesa, Ariz., his son said.
His efforts as a business and civic leader won a formal commendation from Gov. Rudy Perpich in 1989. A few years later, the Anoka County Board declared Oct. 22, 1992, as Reuben Kravik Day.
His recognition certificate called him "an outstanding civic leader" whose leadership of the economic development board, formed in 1985, had made it "a valuable asset to the community, north metro area and the state."
After earning an electrical engineering degree at the University of Minnesota, Kravik joined the U.S. Navy and became a lieutenant commander. He oversaw quality control for submarine engines at a plant in Janesville, Wis., said his son, Rick Kravik.
He said his dad reacted quickly when he was notified in 1943 that a Navy submarine was stranded near Bermuda because it needed a replacement engine part.
It happened on a weekend when the Janesville plant was closed. So "dad climbed the security fence and got the part out of inventory. He delivered it to a waiting jet that flew to the coast. A helicopter delivered the part to the submarine before the Germans could send a ship to sink it," his son said.
After the war Kravik taught math and statistics four years at the University of Minnesota. He had a lifelong interest in statistics and business trends that he analyzed to help guide production of electrical connection boxes and other Hoffman products, his son said.
When owner Charles Horn hired Kravik as Hoffman vice president and general manager in 1953, the Anoka firm had seven employees. When he retired in 1982, the workforce was about 1,200.
Kravik was an active volunteer, serving on councils of local Boy Scouts and Zion Lutheran Church in Anoka, and on Anoka's library board, along with former County Attorney Bob Johnson Sr.
"He was a details man," Johnson recalled. "He didn't let you get by with generalities."
Kravik's major civic effort was serving on a county association that got Mercy Hospital built in the 1950s. In the mid-1980s, he was board chairman of Health Central, which included Mercy, and has become Allina Hospitals & Clinics.
"Reuben Kravik was one of the driving forces behind the creation of Mercy Hospital in the 1950s," said Allina communications director David Kanihan.
"Reuben's ability to understand hospital operations and his commitment to community service have been an inspiration to Allina leaders for generations."
Besides his son, Kravik is survived by his wife, Isabelle Leas, daughter Melinda Quivik, of Houghton, Mich., and three granddaughters.
Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Thurston-Lindberg Funeral Home in Anoka. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Zion Lutheran Church, 1601 4th Av., Anoka.
