Westinghouse Electric Corporation


The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in 1945. Through the early and mid-20th century, Westinghouse Electric was a powerhouse in heavy industry, electrical production and distribution, consumer electronics, home appliances and a wide variety of other products. They were a major supplier of generators and steam turbines for most of their history, and was also a major player in the field of nuclear power, starting with the Westinghouse Atom Smasher in 1937.
A series of downturns and management missteps in the 1970s and 1980s combined with large cash balances led the company to enter the financial services business. Their focus was on mortgages, which suffered significant losses in the late 1980s. In 1992 they announced a major restructuring and the liquidation of their credit operations. In 1995, in a major change of direction, the company acquired the CBS television network and renamed itself CBS Corporation. Most of its remaining industrial businesses were sold off at this time. CBS Corp was acquired by Viacom in 1999, a merger completed in April 2000. The CBS Corporation name was later reused for one of the two companies resulting from the split of Viacom in 2005.
One of the few remaining original lines of business to survive this process was the nuclear power division, which was sold to BNFL in 1999 and re-formed as Westinghouse Electric Company. The Westinghouse trademarks are owned by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and were previously part of Westinghouse Licensing Corporation.

History

Beginnings

Westinghouse Electric was founded by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 8, 1886. Building on the advancement of AC technology in Europe, the firm became active in developing alternating current electric infrastructure throughout the United States. The company's largest factories were located in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lester, Pennsylvania and Hamilton, Ontario, where they made turbines, generators, motors, and switch gear for the generation, transmission, and use of electricity. In addition to George Westinghouse, early engineers working for the company included Frank Conrad, Benjamin Garver Lamme, Bertha Lamme, Oliver B. Shallenberger, William Stanley, Nikola Tesla, Stephen Timoshenko, and Vladimir Zworykin.
Early on, Westinghouse was a rival to Thomas Edison's electric company. In 1892, Edison was merged with Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, making an even bigger competitor, General Electric.
During the 20th century, Westinghouse engineers and scientists were granted more than 28,000 U.S. patents, the third most of any company. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company changed its name to Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1945.

1990s

In 1990, Westinghouse experienced a serious setback when the corporation lost over one billion dollars due to bad high-risk, high-fee, high-interest loans made by its Westinghouse Credit Corporation lending arm.
In an attempt to revitalize the corporation, the board of directors appointed outside management in the form of CEO Michael H. Jordan, who brought in numerous consultants to help re-engineer the company in order to realize the potential that they saw in the broadcasting industry. Westinghouse reduced the workforce in many of its traditional industrial operations and made further acquisitions in broadcasting to add to its already substantial Group W network, including Infinity Broadcasting, TNN, CMT, American Radio Systems, and rights to NFL broadcasting. These investments cost the company over fifteen billion dollars. To recoup its costs, Westinghouse sold many other operations, including its defense electronics division, its metering and load control division, its residential security division, the office furniture company Knoll, and Thermo King.
Westinghouse purchased CBS Inc. in 1994 for $5.4 billion. Westinghouse Electric Corporation changed its name to and became the original CBS Corporation in 1997. Also in 1997, the Power Generation Business Unit, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, was sold to Siemens of Germany. A year later, CBS sold all of its commercial nuclear power businesses to British Nuclear Fuels Limited. In connection with that sale, certain rights to use the Westinghouse trademarks were granted to the newly formed BNFL subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric Company. That company was sold to Toshiba in 2006.

Products and sponsorships

  • Power generation: The company pioneered the power generation industry and in the fields of long-distance power transmission and high-voltage alternating-current transmission, unveiling the technology for lighting in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
  • Steam turbine generator: The first commercial Westinghouse steam turbine-driven generator, a 1,500 kW unit, began operation at Hartford Electric Light Co. in 1901. The machine, nicknamed Mary-Ann, was the first steam turbine generator to be installed by an electric utility to generate electricity in the US. George Westinghouse had based his original steam turbine design on designs licensed from the English inventor Charles Parsons. Today a large proportion of steam turbine generators operating around the world, ranging to units as large as 1,500 MW were supplied by Westinghouse from its factories in Lester, Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina, or Hamilton, Ont. or were built overseas under Westinghouse license. Major Westinghouse licensees or joint venture partners included Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan and Harbin Turbine Co. and Shanghai Electric Co. of China.
  • Research: Westinghouse had 50,000 employees by 1900 and established a formal research and development department in 1906. While the company was expanding, it would experience internal financial difficulties. During the Panic of 1907, the Board of Directors forced George Westinghouse to take a six-month leave of absence. Westinghouse officially retired in 1909 and died several years later in 1914.
  • Electrical technology: Under new leadership, Westinghouse Electric diversified its business activities in electrical technology. It acquired the Copeman Electric Stove Company in 1914 and Pittsburgh High Voltage Insulator Company in 1921. Westinghouse also moved into radio broadcasting by establishing Pittsburgh's KDKA, the first commercial radio station, and WBZ in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1921. Westinghouse expanded into the elevator business, establishing the Westinghouse Elevator Company in 1928; it sold its elevator business to Schindler Group in 1989. Throughout the decade, diversification engendered considerable growth; sales went from $43 million in 1914 to $216 million in 1929.
  • Aviation: Westinghouse produced the first operational American turbojet for the US Navy program in 1943. After many successes, the ill-fated J40 project, started soon after World War Two, was abandoned in 1955 and led to Westinghouse exiting the aircraft engine business with the closure of the Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division in 1960.
  • Gas turbines: During the late 1940s, Westinghouse applied its aviation gas turbine technology and experience to develop its first industrial gas turbine. A 2,000–horsepower model W21 was installed in 1948 at the Mississippi River Fuel Corp gas compression station in Wilmar, Arkansas. This was the starting point for the company to enter in industrial and utility gas turbine business, prior to the sale by Westinghouse of the power generation business to Siemens AG in 1997. Evolving from the Small Steam and Gas Turbine Division formed in the early 1950s, the Westinghouse Combustion Turbine Systems Division was located in Concordville, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia and the old Lester, Pennsylvania plant, until it was relocated to Power Generation headquarters in Orlando, Florida in 1987.
  • Nuclear power: As a result of its participation in the US government's military program for nuclear energy applications Westinghouse utilized that experience in the development and commercialization of nuclear energy systems for electric power generation. This business currently operates as the Westinghouse Electric Company and is owned by Brookfield Business Partners of Canada. Electricite de France a major global player in the nuclear power business, was a long-time licensee of the Westinghouse nuclear technology.
  • Industrial motors: Additional major industrial products in the widespread Westinghouse portfolio included electric motors of all sizes, elevators and escalators, controls, and lighting. The Large Motor Division, once headquartered in Buffalo, NY, entered a joint venture with Taiwan Electric Co. in the 1970s and today operates as TECO-Westinghouse. Much of Westinghouse's higher voltage power equipment was sold to ABB in 1989 and renamed the ABB Power T&D Company.
  • Rail transit: The Westinghouse Transportation Division supplied equipment and controls for many North American interurban and streetcar lines, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, Washington Metro, New York City Subway equipment from the 1890s elevated era to the R68A in 1988, among many other heavy rail and rail transit systems and built locomotives, often in partnership with Baldwin, Lima-Hamilton as well as supplying electrical and traction equipment for Fairbanks-Morse diesel locomotives. The division designed and built Automated People Movers at several major U.S. airports, including Sea-Tac. Tampa, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Orlando. The Transportation Division was sold to AEG of Germany, which merged into a joint venture of ABB and Daimler-Benz named AdTranz in 1996. Ultimately, the unit was acquired by Bombardier of Canada in 2001 and is still headquartered in Pittsburgh.
  • Consumer electrics: Westinghouse was also among the initial manufacturers to make household electrical products including radios, televisions, and other audio/video equipment. This also included both small and large electric appliances of all kinds, from hair dryers and electric irons to clothes washers and dryers, refrigerators and air conditioning units. After more than 50 years, and after playing a strong No. 2 to rival General Electric for most of that time, Westinghouse decided to exit the appliance business in the mid-1970s. White-Westinghouse was formed when White Consolidated Industries acquired the Westinghouse appliance unit in 1975.
  • World's Fair time capsules: The company is also known for its time capsule contributions during the 1939 New York World's Fair and 1964 New York World's Fair. They also participated in the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. They sponsored the Westinghouse Auditorium at the fair, where they showed films documenting Westinghouse products and company plants. Westinghouse was one of the original corporate sponsors and exhibitors at Walt Disney World's EPCOT attraction in Orlando, Florida.