Featuring :
- Bob Wassung
http://www.southeasternctscore.org/bios/wassung.htm
- Newspaper article Waterbury Republican - 9/5/2010 under Comments below
Former Torrington Company workers still socialize like 'big family'
- 2nd Newspaper Article Waterbury Republican – 9/5/ 2010 under Comments below
Laid-off workers find a new life Leave big industry for modest but satisfying jobs
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- Bob Wassung
http://www.southeasternctscore.org/bios/wassung.htm
- Newspaper article Waterbury Republican - 9/5/2010 under Comments below
Former Torrington Company workers still socialize like 'big family'
- 2nd Newspaper Article Waterbury Republican – 9/5/ 2010 under Comments below
Laid-off workers find a new life Leave big industry for modest but satisfying jobs
-
2 comments:
What a great pleasure it is to see articles such as this!
Bob Wassung and I crossed paths many times over the years, and through a variety of plants, it is, as I said, a real pleasure to catch up with him, once again!
My warmest wished to Bob!!
-Newspaper article
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Former Torrington Company workers still socialize like 'big family'
BY JIM MOORE REPUBLICAN-AMERICANTORRINGTON — They called it "The Big T," as if it were a wartime regiment or a football team, not a company.The Torrington Company, which began here in 1866 and finally closed its doors in 2004, engendered that kind of loyalty. And it still does, years after its demise.Last December, some 150 former employees turned out for a Christmas party at the Cornucopia Banqueting Hall."That's pretty good for five years later," said Charles "Skip" Shattuck, a former engineer for the company and the main party planner. "We'd have a lot more if we could reach everybody."They came from as far away as Texas. In fact, one retiree, Norman Massicotte, runs a blog from the Lone Star State for former employees. It traces the company's history — first as the nation's only maker of sewing machine needles and later as a Fortune 500 maker of ball bearings — and keeps alumni in touch.One feature found at www.thetorringtonco-alumni.blogspot.com is a photo of the final group of administrators to leave the Excelsior office in 2007."It was like a big family," Shattuck recalls of his former workplace. "It was a team and we pulled together."In its heyday, the Torrington Company was this city's biggest employer. After a series of mergers, takeovers and reversals, it was bought by the Ohio-based Timken Company in 2003. Some 2,000 employees were laid off when it finally shuttered."The common theme at the party, people talked to me how much the old Torrington Co. had it right," Shattuck said. "What we learned was to jump in and solve the problem, even if it wasn't our responsibility." Most big manufacturing companies never learned that lesson, he said.
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