Page 555-556 - William M. Bertles is vice-president of the vital investment-banking corporation of Howe, Snow & Bertles, Inc., and has reason to take pride in being a principal in this concern and one of the executives closely and effectively identified with the development of the large and important business that this Grand Rapids corporation controls in the handling of high-grade securities. Further reference to the scope of the business is made on other pages, in the personal sketch of Warren H. Snow, one of the founders. Mr. Bertles was born at Green Bay, Wisconsin, October 31, 1887, and is a son of John F. and Eliza Deland (Switzer) Bertles. The public schools of his native state afforded Mr. Bertles his preliminary education, and in 1909 he was graduated in the engineering department of the great University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and of the honorary engineering society know as Tau Beta Pi. The early business career of Mr. Bertles was in connection with the lumber trade, in which he was for some time associated with his brother, John F. Bertles, in the city of Chicago, and later alone under the firm name of Bertles Lumber Company. In 1912 he came to Grand Rapids and became one of the organizers of the firm of Hilliker, Bertles & Company, which here engaged in the bond business. About a year later he became one of the organizers and constituent members of the investment-banking firm of Howe, Snow & Bertles, Inc., and since the incorporation of the business, in 1916, he has been vice-president. At the time of this writing, in the summer of 1925, Mr. Bertles is preparing to remove, in the autumn, to New York City, where he will be active in the national metropolis office of his corporation. In Grand Rapids he has membership in the Peninsular, University and Kent country clubs, and he and his wife are members of the Park Congregational Church. In 1916 Mr. Bertles wedded Miss Katherine Hummer, and they have four children.