Fred Carl, Jr.

Fred E. Carl, Jr. is an American entrepreneur and the founder of Viking Range Corporation, a manufacturer of commercial-style kitchen appliances for the home. With the introduction of the first Viking range in 1987, Carl is credited with creating the popular professional category of domestic appliances, which later evolved into stainless steel becoming the dominant finish for high-end kitchen appliances.

Born February 14, 1948, in Greenwood, Mississippi, United States, Carl is a lifelong resident of his hometown, except for his time serving in the military and a brief period living in Jackson, Mississippi, following college. He attended Greenwood High School, graduating in 1966, and continued his education at Mississippi State University. He worked summers for his father's construction business during junior high and high school and his first two years of college. The Vietnam war interrupted his education and he served two years of active duty in the Naval Air Reserve as a search and rescue helicopter crewman at the U.S. Navy base in Keflavik, Iceland. After completing active duty and returning to the U.S., he resumed his college education at Delta State University, where he obtained a bachelor of business administration degree. After graduating from Delta State, he studied architecture for a brief time at Mississippi State University, and then attended graduate school in urban and regional planning at the University of Mississippi.

Carl returned to his hometown to resume his career in the construction business, his family's heritage. His great-grandfather, Jonathan Carl, had moved from Franklin, Tennessee, to Mississippi where he established Carl Brick Company and was also a building contractor. His grandfather, William A. Carl, and father, Fred E. Carl, Sr., were also building contractors in Greenwood, Mississippi, with Fred Carl, Jr. becoming the fourth generation of the Carl family to be a building contractor in the area. He specialized in design-build, carrying out both design and construction of projects.

In 1970, Carl married the former Margaret Leflore, a descendant of the family of Chief Greenwood Leflore, the last Chief of the Choctaw Indian Nation. They have one son, Christopher Leflore Carl.

When designing a new home for his family in 1981, Carl's wife, Margaret, who had learned to cook on a heavy-duty vintage Chambers gas range, wanted a similar gas range for their new kitchen. Knowing that heavy-duty, high-end gas ranges had long since become extinct, Carl realized that the only alternative for a heavy-duty range for their new kitchen would be a commercial range like those used in restaurants. However, after researching the use of commercial ranges in the home, Carl became concerned about the serious disadvantages this involved: little or no insulation, hot surfaces that could burn a child's hand, high heat output into the kitchen, excessive energy consumption, the need for fireproofing adjacent surfaces where the range was to be installed, and the ovens of commercial ranges having no broiler.

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