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18

MY GE WORK

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   I have described H. L. Andrews somewhat nonchalant way of informing me that I was about to go on a four-day week. But that was my biggest GE development in the early part of 1933. In a few years, Andy was to be told by somebody that he was not to be the president of the General Electric Company and I doubt if he felt any worse than I did that morning. But I said dramatically, "I can take it!" and went back to my job, what there was of it, which wasn't much at that point.
   About this time, there was a major move in the organization. F. E. Case retired and was succeeded by Walt Harris, who was heading the Automotive Engineering unit recently transferred from Lynn as I've noted before. There is a little background of interest here. In 1926, before TED moved to Erie, H. L. Andrews had been aware that something was wrong with the Automotive business at Lynn who made the small, high-speed motors for buses, battery trucks, trolley coaches and the like. So Andy sent Whitey Wilson from Schenectady to Lynn to find out what was wrong. After being there six months, Whitey reported to Andy that the trouble wasn't commercial but engineering and he'd better send a good engineer out there to straighten it up. So Andy sent Walt Harris to Lynn and Walt did the job. This had impressed Andy and led to Walt's being chosen to succeed Case. However, Walt had his office on the 4th floor near Andy's instead of on the 3rd where Case had been, and Tritle moved his office to Case's old place. So Walt proceeded to run Engineering and it wasn't too many years before his propensity for penny-pinching, particularly on salaries, incited a rebellion among his men. It was at this time that such topnotch engineers as John Crankshaw and Lanier Greer simply up and left the Company, the former to go with Zurn and the latter with Reliance Electric in Cleveland. Because of this debacle, Walt was demoted to "Designing Engineer" of the Erie Works, or maybe it was of the Transportation Divisions, and he was supplanted by Hubert Gouldthorpe, not only a superb engineer but also an all around guy who was destined to go on to a Group Executive job some twenty years hence. One detail I failed to mention is the fact that the Automotive Engineering unit that Walt had headed was put under Mark Hanna in Railway Motor Engineering and lost its identity.
   At this time in 1933, insofar as I can recall or tell from my notes, Whitey Wilson had not yet emerged clearly as the coming Great White Father of TED but Andy had undoubtedly selected him, at least tentatively, for that post when, for whatever reason, he should step down or away or what. Actually, I have no record that Whitey had yet taken over Urban Transit and at the time, I believe that C.A.Burleson was the boss in there. But Whitey was well on his way. The "Spanish Villa" or "Kitcher Trailer" or whatever, that I'd styled, was assigned to Whitey and me to follow in TED and to Jim MacKenzie in Devlin's place. On January 4th, the three of us spent half the day searching