IR bought out Torrington as of December 31, 1968 but did not name its own choice for President, Tom Bennett, until 1981. That’s 13 years of Torrington running its own show.
Does anyone know if there had been an agreement in the sell out that Torrington would maintain its own management….. for example “as long as Torrington met IR’s performance criteria“? (See Bob Breckinridge’s recollections in Comments under Discussion Topic 1)
Torrington enjoyed a relatively independent status during those years. It expanded with the money and blessing of Ingersoll-Rand to perhaps the resentment of other IR holdings. Other than monthly financial reporting, we had only to satisfy a quarterly management review. It seemed as long as Torrington remained on or ahead of the profit schedule, there was no interference from WCL.
Was Ray O’Connell retired early? I.e. forced out? I was an employee at the time and what I witnessed was Ray being President one day and after a visit to Woodcliff Lake, was out the next. He was a graduate of MIT Class of 1941 so I would guess he was about 61 years old in 1981. That seems a little young for voluntary retirement.
Was there a conflict of personalities? Did Ray fail to provide IR what they were looking for from Torrington? If so, what was that?
Was it a desire to improve Torrington’s performance with a different man? Or was it just a time for change?
Norm Massicotte
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Normand,
I think your first Blog caught us by surprise, on the golf course or vacation. In any event keep up the good work.
My take on things is a little different than yours. Walter Thompson and E K Brown showed great vision when they began to employ people like Don Lewis, Ray O'Connell and Bill Candler. Thus began the shift to a sophisticated technical sales force backed up by an ever improving engineering and research effort on behalf of the needle bearing division.
Ray O'Connell, by accident, discovered that our needle thrust bearing was very useful in automatic transmissions and thus began an explosion in Torrington's importance to the auto business. Our decision to duplicate thrust bearing manufacturing in Canada helped to maintain market share and opened the door to keeping all the pump vane business.
Re Ray's dismissal, "Fired" is the correct term. The arrival of "Good Old Tom" was …………..
I was in Wurselen in the early 60's and the investment in needle making machinery was pathetic at best. Don't forget that our Aachen plant received very little damage during WWII. German competitors were flattened and after the war the Marshall plan rebuilt them with the most modern of equipment. I think Torrington's chances died at that time.
Oskar Klemm Germany's Managing Director reported to F.I.H.Wood in England. I never felt that WWII was over as between the UK and Germany even as late as the early sixties. Torrington's UK headquaters were in Coventry, the city that was leveled by the Luftwaffe. Herr Klemm was a former bomber pilot and I know first hand that Coventry employees went out of their way to mess up our little German needle bearing factory. It was a mess.
Best regards,
Bud Couch
Hi Bud
Its good to hear from you and your insight is enlightening. I agree with you that we missed the boat in Europe getting in on the ground floor of their auto manufacture renaissance after the war. It just seems that the German/English tiff never ceased and Torrington suffered the worst for it.
Just think where we would be today if we had dominated with metric bearings in Europe as we did with inch bearings in the U.S.A. Looks like our management failed to manage our European managers by not recognizing the inherent discord.
I would like to add your comments to the blog. Is that OK? Unless I hear otherwise from you in the next 24 hours, I'll figure you acquiesced.
Best regards,
Norm M
With regard to your comments about metric bearings in Europe and our failure to dominate the market.
I saw two reasons for that failure. We had depended on Cincinnati for grinders and Waterbury for presses without regard to foreign suppliers. Our worldwide competitors were using Japanese and European machinery that was stiffer and more precise. About 1964 Helmuth Eckhardt was allowed to purchase several European grinders that proved to be faster and more precise and we could finally compete for metric rollers.
Our folks in Torrington did not understand how formidable INA, privately owned by the Scheffler brothers, was.
I remember my first visit to Wolfsburg to meet the Purchasing people. As I sat in the lobby I became aware of the largest oriental rug I had ever seen before or after. On the wall was a GOLD plaque formalizing the date of the gift from Georg Scheffler and Wilhelm Scheffler of INA to VW. Some thorough research revealed that they also manufactured carpets, mufflers, exhaust pipes and other lesser components for the auto manufactures.
In the short term they could ignore profit margins, ROI and stockholder needs as they were the only stockholders. They had the freedom to defend their market share as they saw fit. Power and relationships were on their side although nationalism worked against them to some extent in the UK, France, the Low Countries and Italy.
At the end of my stay I was asked what we should do. My reply was to combine with or buy up INA's competitors as the opportunity came up. I guess that's what we did.
Bud
Norm-
I agree with Bud Couch. Ray O'Connell was fired much to his surprise. He had a strong relationship with Garfield but not Holmes. And remember, Holmes won the presidency over Garfield. However, the strongest influence was MacKie. There was at that time within IR that we really didn't accept being part of IR as well as they had hoped and something had to be done about it. Hence, goodbye Ray O'Connell.
bob Breckinridge
Post a Comment