Charles H. Kretschmer was born in Essen, Germany in 1879. He came to the United States in 1893 and moved to Saginaw, Michigan in 1898. Kretschmer was a prominant grocer in Saginaw during the early 1900s. He also founded the Kretschmer Corporation which produced wheat germ and related products in Carrollton, Michigan for many years. He died in Saginaw in 1949.