Circle W

Circle W

Closing a loop

I can remember a catalog of products that literally spanned a desk shelf back the year I worked as an assistant sales engineer at Westinghouse. As much as I relished a connection to the nearly 100 years of innovation that those blue books held, there they sat above my head like deadfall, mocking me about how much I didn’t know. I bet those books are gone now. The company sure is.

Some years ago, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a special article detailing the demise of this industrial powerhouse, from the sale of its appliance business to White Consolidated Industries in 1974 to the eventual purchasing of CBS in 1994 and the sloughing off of the industrial business units to pay for it. http://www.post-gazette.com/westinghouse/nolonger.asp

The latest Westinghouse news is that Toshiba will purchase the nuclear business from owner British Nuclear Fuels PLC for some $5 billion. It’s betting that the Chinese atomic plant business will spin up over the next few years. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06024/643198.stm

I was always a little smug in thinking I got out of Westinghouse for a more promising job. I didn’t, it turned out, but that’s why Risk comes with a capital R. I always thought it best to find a job while you have a job. Older now, but no wiser, I’m wondering if that’s always the smartest policy.

I’d like to hear the survival stories of readers who stayed and those who strayed when the companies they were working for were throttling back or being sold. Please join in with your comments.