Old Mentors and Old Firms

[JAE]

Just curious - I started out my structural career in south Texas in 1982 with a firm that had been founded in 1909. The library there had lots of old engineering text books and other references - including a foundations book autographed by Terzoghi (famous geotechnical guy in the US).

The engineer's that I worked under all started their careers in engineering in the years 1927, 1942, 1946, 1946 and 1960-something (if I remember correctly).

I would think that there are fairly "ancient" firms on the east coast of the US, and in many countries in Europe. Got any other examples of old mentors or old firms?

 

[Roadbridge]

A friend of mine worked for a company called Ove Arup for a time.They were founded in 1946 with two offices in London and Dublin, they do not go as far back as 1910 though.

http://www.arup.com

 

[Heckler]

I started my mechanical design career at a company called Fabco Automotive founded sometime around 1918. I worked under brit named Terry who was ready to retire. I was old school all the way from management style to hand drawings. I hated it there and left after a year. IMO old companies that are reluctant to change with the times a bound to die off but this one is still around because they have a niche'

http://www.fabcoautomotive.com/

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
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Do you trust your intuition or go with the flow?

 

[davefitz]

You may have hit a chord re: old libraries. I remember finding an original edition of a book on hypnotism by Mesmer in the Troy, NY library in 1975, published circa 1830, and there were also a complete bound set of 1900 era magazines on steam locomotive engineering at the RPI engineering library .

 

[ejc]

Currently I’m working in the northeast area of the U.S. I am at a company founded in the 1880’s. The newest building on site was built in 1945. Talk about some old equipment! The first day here, I thought I entered a time warp. Some days I’m just amazed at what we can do with equipment purchased in 1950.

 

[swall]

When I worked for GKN in North Carolina, we had a machining supplier, Whitin-Roberts, that was in business during the U.S. civil war. GKN itself derives Guess, Keen and Nettlefolds, a very old maker of hardware in 19th century England.

 

[metengr]

Prior to my current job, I had worked for a large urban electric utility. They had two power stations located within the city limits. One of the sites had the first 5Mw Curtis steam turbine in 1903. B&W supplied eight 508-hp steam boilers, rated at 180 psig and 530° F. This was the first public utility plant in the world that operated entirely with steam turbines, with a capacity of 5 MW each.

I was able to see the actual guest book that contained signatures from such dignitaries as Thomas Edison and the Queen of England.

 

[eureka]

Fromhertz Engineers Inc. in New Orleans, LA was founded in 1867. They specialized in drainage works and did many of the early drainage projects in New Orleans. Today they are a full service company. They have a plethora of old engineering drawings, many in ink on linen and old photographs of draftsmen and engineers dressed in starched shirts with ties and coats. It is hard to imagine working in the summer in New Orleans with its high temperature and humidity with starched shirts, ties and coats with ink on linen and NO AIR CONDITIONING! I don't think the good old days are for me.

 

[UKpete]

It's no too hard to find old-established companies in the UK. I spent several years with Brush Electrical Machines in Loughborough, UK, in the traction motor design office. Electric traction goes back a long way and between the wars they also built trams (streetcars) which were found in most UK cities then.

The company was founded over here in 1879 by Charles Francis Brush, from Cleveland, Ohio (I'm not sure if he actually emigrated from the US, certainly that would have been against the flow at that time).

http://www.brushtraction.com/fhistory/history.htm

The company was about 10,000 strong after WW2, shrinking to about 2,000 when I joined. In my department there were half a dozen engineers and about a dozen draughtsmen, all just working on traction motors. The level of experience represented was incredible by todays standards - most had been there all their working lives and the three most senior motor engineers had over 140 years between them IN THE SAME OFFICE! There were very entrenched ways of doing things but I have to say, it worked. On the London Underground District and Victoria lines the Brush supplied traction motors averaged over 5million miles per casualty (including damage caused by extraneous sources), not bad for open-ventilated dc motors mounted directly on the axle, on a duty cycle calling for acceleration from a standing start every two minutes. These motors are still in use, although I don't suppose the casualty figures are still as good.

 

[UKpete]

By the way, my post reads as though 8,000 left on the day I joined. It wasn't quite that bad.

 

[haggis]

In 1961, I started at a firm established in the 1860's if memory serves correctly, which made and designed coal mining machinery. This was in Glasgow, Scotland, a real hub of engineering at that time and for a century before. Many of the older men used to wear shirt and tie and cloth cap even in machine shops.

 

[drawoh]

Way back in around 1978/79, I was going through the old drawings, and I found some done in 1941 by the then manager of the drafting department. He was around at least ten years after that.

I called a place about getting some custom gears made. This was back in the late eighties. I chatted over the phone with the manager who mentioned casually, that he had worked for Hamilton Gear in Toronto before he had quit and started his own company. His company was founded in 1922! I do not know how old he was. He had to be at least in his nineties. I guess it beats sitting around the house watching TV all day.

JHG

 

[GregLocock]

When I started here, 15 years ago, we had a part, B60, for which the drawing was drawn in the thirties, and had been updated once. It was still in use then.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[Maui]

My current company, Crucible Materials Corp., was founded in 1876. The hand rolling mill that is still being used today was purchased used back in the 1930's, and I believe that it dates back to the civil war. It's amazing the tolerances that can be held on this mill.

Maui

 

[SlideRuleEra]

My previous employer has a 2 MW, vertical shaft, hydro elecric turbine/generator that went online in 1950. It has run almost continuously since then. In the mid 1980's an inspection was made for wear on the underwater wooden (lignum vitae) bearing - there was no measurable wear. It is still in service today.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[FastMouse]

In the summer of 1987, I spent a summer working on the shop floor of a mechanical design & manufacturing firm. We used a huge (maybe 3m tall) steel plate cutter manufactured in 1890.

When I read the previous posts about cleverly designed and skilfully built equipment that lasts forever, I think that's just great. I wish I could say the same about this plate cutter. It was driven by a massive iron flywheel, on very rumbly bearings, which was spun up to speed by a retro-fitted electric motor. With no guards, it was amazing that nobody got tangled up in it. Lethal.

At the same place I used an ancient steel sheet punch. Turn of the century equipment. Again, no guards or material handling tools - just engage the flywheel and hang on to the work piece. My training on the machine consisted of "When yah tramp on this here kicker, make sure yer ready for it, make sure yer hands are clear, 'cause that punch, she ain't stoppin' for nothin'!"

Ah, happy days!

 

[ScottyUK]

I spent a few happy years working at ERA Technology, a company whose roots go back to the early days of electric power. It must have been an amazing place to work in its heyday.

http://www.era.co.uk/corporate/history.asp

It seems a lot of changes have taken place since I left: the Power Electronics & Drives group where I worked appears to have been disbanded for a start.

By way of a coincidence the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association as the company was then known started on the site of the old Carville Power Station in Wallsend on Tyneside just a few miles from where I grew up. The fledgling company relocated to outer London before WW2, where it remains to this day. I eventually quit a job I loved because I passionately hated living in London, but I found the company to be an inspirational place to work. It had a real sense that history had been made there by previous generations whose brilliance we could only aspire to.




----------------------------------

If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[p11100]

I worked for a number of years for a company called John Sisk and Son who were founded in 1857.

 

[TomBarsh]

In my earlier days I worked for a small family run company that had maintained all of its engineering drawings since origination. I used to get a kick out of thumbing through the drawers and seeing the old ink-on-linen drawings from the earliest part of the 20th century. They didn't even call out for arc welding (wasn't invented), sometimes there was "hammer welding".

 

[unclesyd]

TomBarsh,
Look at them; I drew some of them in the Fifties.

I don’t have any one that I can single out because I had so many people that I would have to consider mentors, I would be hard pressed to name one. In the latter part of my career, in fact all of it, I tried to mentor anyone was showed any interest. I tried to always answer a question posed by anyone even the janitor. I found out early on this paid off in spades. I have formed an opinion that the work place enviroment no longer has a place for the likes of me or the people who’s tutelage that I came up under.

My first job was in a steel as #3 helper on an open hearth furnace, no mentors just a boot in the butt.
When the mill went on strike and when we finished banking and dummy charging the furnaces I started look for something better.

Started to collage on the COOP plan working for a large valve and fitting company that was about 60 years old. The company had 2 outstanding metallurgists, both veterans of the military arsenals. They were both gentleman and were quite willing to explain every aspect of iron and steel business especially the foundry. My second quarter working I was making up the charge sheets for two cupolas, Gray Iron and Malleable Iron. It was these two gentleman that started me thinking about materials even though I was in ChemE program at school. This experienced lasted for 6 quarters in school. Got my draft notice in the school dormitory and put in my time and when I came out there was no more COOP program. Got out of service and somehow got job a large Integrated Synthetic Fiber Plant at Pensacola. Got to work with some very talented Chemists, ChemE’s, MechE’s, and all the other associated disciplines. The great part of this group was that most had received their degrees or advanced degrees prior to WWII and had worked on a very diverse projects during the war. No matter what the problem or task there was always different opinions on what approach to take it to resolution. This was a great training enbiroment for me. The head of the department evidently took a liking to me and I got to work on some very interesting projects that greatly enhanced my knowledge base. Just to think of all the energy saving projects of the time that were not feasible due to gas being $0.04/Therm. One stick of pipe but no valves.
Again it was the people willing to share and explain things in a way that was understandable to novice.
We had at the time very complex chemical processes from the vacuum distillation columns to hydrogenation process that operated at 10,000 psig. I just ran into an engineer that was in my initial group and he asked me “Had I started running yet”, in reference to the first time I ventured into the synthesis building with it’s high pressure and mechanical equipment and I had asked him when it was time to start running. His answer was "Wait until I start". and I responded with “Hell no, I heard you was the last one to leave the last time. The site had 21 PhD’s covering all disciplines when I went to work and there was only one that was unapproachable. The first 5 or 6 years were all a gigantic learning experience. This coupled with the fact that the company had a lot on site seminars and classes I got to meet and talk with some of the people in the forefront of technology at the time. The only ones that I was not particularly fond of were Box and Hunter of the statistical fame with their EVOP (Evolutionary Operation). Overloaded me with work, can you imagine a 2^5 factorial replicated five times without the aid of a computer. The rest of my tenure was also a learning experience because I forced it and was curious, some might say nosey.

Starting in the plant when I did was a tremendous benefit as nearly everything was legacy, process and equipment great opportunities for improvement. Worked on bubble cap columns with Vulcan trays, high pressure synthesis, catalyst manufacture and several high temperature processes.
When the group that I was in was disbanded I was given the opportunity to move into the Materials and Metallurgical Group. The head of this group was an outstanding metallurgist not as willing to share as my first employer but would help in pinch. The greatest aspect of this job was that we got involved in nearly everything that went on at the site and a lot for other company sites. This job put me in contact with some extremely talented people both from the engineering aspect and the mechanics of doing the job as we essentially accomplished everything on site. We had a large fab and Hx shop, very large machine shop, large motor shop, instrument shop, valve and relief valve shop, carpenter shop, and even a sewing shop. The first time I visited the machine shop I like to fell over as it was air conditioned with all types of air filters and exhaust, I had a little twinge when I wonder what my father would have said if he had walked in.

I just wish that the young engineers just starting could have met and worked with some of the outstanding people that I was fortunate enough to meet and work with instead of just passing by.

You haven’t lived in the engineering world until you have sweated bullets at 2:30 am on a cold winter’s night.

It may be strange to say but I continue to meet and learn from people by way of the ether on this forum.