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Oral History – Bill Gutzwiller (Continued)
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Immediately I could see the
possibilities for these solid-state devices in control applications of the
type I had been working on at Allis-Chalmers, Schindler, Cutler Hammer, and
Harnischfeger. At the same time,
some of my disillusionment at Harnischfeger, my employer at that time, must
have communicated itself to Harvey. Mary and I also told Harvey
about the upcoming vacation we were planning with our little Betsy at my
uncle’s Ramshead Farm in upstate New
York. All
of a sudden, the bulb lit in Harvey’s
head. He told me their new business
was looking for experienced technical people for their field sales force
and said he could line me up for an interview at their Syracuse
semiconductor headquarters while we were at the farm some 70 miles away
near Ithaca. I thought “What’s there to lose?” and
said OK.
So it was that Mary and drove in
our new Ford two-door automobile to GE’s huge Electronics
Park operation in Syracuse.
Dick Rudolph, the sales manager for semiconductors, sat down with me
and discussed my experience and aspirations and told me about their
business, its explosive growth, and their need for young fast-learner field
salesmen. I expressed interest and
enthusiasm for the prospects even though I had zero solid-state or
electronic device knowledge or experience.
(Marquette’s electrical engineering curriculum had nothing on
solid-state physics when I was in school despite the revolutionary impact
it would have in just a few years.)
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Oral History – Bill Gutzwiller (Continued)
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We agreed that, if GE hired
me, I would have to spend at least six months in Engineering learning
something about this new technology before I’d be ready to go into the
field. Rudolph suggested that the
best place for this engineering experience would be in their plant at Clyde, New York,
about 50 miles west of Syracuse
where they fabricated these new transistor and rectifier marvels from
germanium. Since the day was still
young, Dick phoned their manager of engineering at Clyde
and arranged to have Mary and me visit there that beautiful September
afternoon. Off we went, taking the
newly finished New York Thruway west to Weedsport and then on backroads to Clyde, which turned out to be a few block long
country town of about 1500 people.
The GE plant was a one story building on the outskirts and was
located next to the old Erie Canal which passed through Clyde. I checked in at the front desk and was
soon ushered in to meet Ray York who described their business and asked
about my aspirations. We hit it off
together immediately. He then
introduced me to two of his supervisors, Roy Lewis and Russ Lyon. They showed me around the plant and gave
me an overview of the products they made and the labs in which they developed
those products. I was impressed by the compactness of the business, the
hustle with which the ladies on the assembly line did their work, and the
contrast in size and weight between these products and the 100 ton products
we made at Harnischfeger.
Go
To Gutzwiller Oral History, Page 3
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