[BC] General Electric

[Mark Humphrey]

On 12/29/06, PeterH5322 <peterh5322 at rattlebrain.com> wrote:

> General Electric is the ONLY company which has ALWAYS been in the Dow 30
> Industrials for as long as that important business index has existed.
> Based upon that, General Electric is probably the most important single
> company in this country's history.

For those of you interested in GE's contributions to broadcast
technology, a DVD is now available, which discusses the history of
Electronics Park, the large plant along the Thruway (I-90) near
Syracuse where transmitters, audio consoles, radios, and TV sets were
made.  Info at:

www.mmiclients.com/electronicspark/

I recently contacted Steve Auyer, the GE retiree who narrated this
program, and he shared some nice photos of early GE FM gear which I
will post online soon.

As some of you know, what remained of GE's broadcast equipment
business in the '60s was sold to Harris, and the consumer electronics
lines were also sold or moved to other plants.  The Electronics Park
facility was sold to Lockheed Martin, which still uses a couple of the
large buildings for radar systems manufacturing.

Like RCA, the GE "brand" no longer has any material connection with
the real General Electric when applied to low-end consumer products
such as housewares.  Take a close look at the label on a modern-day
"GE" iron, coffemaker, blender, etc. and you see it's actually a
Wal-Mart POS made in China.   I find this a bit discomforting, but I
guess "that's progress".

Mark