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Each year on May 15th I like to share something about my Dad. Here's a little snippet from his early days at General Electric., where he worked for 36 years.There was apparently a "suggestion box" at GE, and people could earn prize money based on their suggestions and how much those suggestions would/could save the company down the line. Dad came up with an idea to perfect the way they were testing something at the plant and eliminate a whole production step. He got a check for 620 bucks. In 1952, that was a LOT of money. It was also the most money that anyone had ever been awarded for any prize .In the article above, they note other winners in 1952, of amounts of 100 dollars. 620 sure must have seemed like winning the lottery! The text also states that "Alexander hopes to use part of the money to continue his education in electronics, he aspires to an Electrical Engineering degree". I just found out last night that GE wanted to pay for him to get that degree. He in fact started taking classes, but he "couldn't hack it". It was too passive for him, sitting there being the student, he probably didn't like not being able to run the show. Go figure.
Part of GE's effort to encourage his ascension in the ranks was to put him in a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Wasted money. No need for that class, where the outcome was slightly difference than the other classes - in between the encyclopedias next to our family piano was a small gold-plated cup on a little marble stand - First Prize. Rumor has it his speech that won was "inappropriate" in the sense it was "off-topic". But still won!
Above: another publicity photo in one of the GE magazines a few years later in 1958, showing Dad running the show at a GE Engineering party that GE paid for and Dad hosted (I bet Mom had something to do with it too). I think he looks young in that photo, but the stretch of his arm, the way he holds up the bucket just so at the right angle, his crooked elbow - is the same as the man I dearly knew decades later.
This last scanned clip above is just part of the text that goes along with the photo. Notice they mark the "tobacco chewing of the boiler". I think they considered him a bit "off-topic", but certainly interesting.
So what happened to that 620 dollar check? Family legend has it that they bought a new crib, and Mom's Singer sewing machine, which is still alive and well. 9 years later, we wish he was too.