Harry C. Brockel, director of the port of Milwaukee and secretary of the Milwaukee Harbor Commission, has been connected with port activities since leaving high school. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, September 18, 1908, the son of Thomas J. and Margaret (Strachan) Brockel, was educated in the public schools of Milwaukee, and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1926. Since that time, he has worked with the harbor commission. After acting as a junior clerk and office boy, he was promoted in 1928 to assistant to the traffic director, and in 1936 he was made secretary to the commission. In September 1942, he was appointed municipal director of the port of Milwaukee, a position whose duties included the construction of dock facilities, dredging, transportation, and planning public port improvements.
Mr. Brockel is well known in port circles and has been the secretary of the Great Lakes Harbors Association and a director of the American Association of Port Authorities. He is a member of the Milwaukee Traffic Club, the Chicago Traffic Club, the Municipal Engineers' Association, the American Society of Military Engineers, and the Milwaukee Government Service League of which he has been a director. Mr. Brockel has also been vice chairman of the Wisconsin Deep Waterways Commission from 1945, a member of the Great Lakes Commission from 1954, and chairman of the governor's committee of the St. Lawrence Seaway Project from 1952. In addition, he has been a member of the advisory board of the Great Lakes Pilotage Administration, a federal port controller for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway ports, a member of the export expansion council of the Department of Commerce and also of the Advisory Council on Naval Affairs of the World Affairs Council. Mr. Brockel has been a member and past director of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, the U.S. Coast Guard League and the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Navy League, the American Society for Public Administration and past president of the Milwaukee chapter, the Milwaukee Athletic Club, the Masons, and the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
In 1954, the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation was created by Congress to construct the seaway and Brockel was appointed by President Eisenhower as a member of the corporation's five man advisory board. In 1968, he retired from the corporation.
Mr. Brockel has been the recipient of many awards, among them the Good Government Award of the Milwaukee Junior Chamber of Commerce for 1957, the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Milwaukee Association of Commerce for 1954, the National Public Service Award of the Fraternal Order of Eagles for 1954, the Pere Marquette Award of Marquette University in 1956, the Distinguished Engineering Service Award of the University of Wisconsin in 1958 and the award of the Cosmopolitan Club in 1959. Mr. Brockel is presently affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
