Centralized Public Utility Management: Development of Stone Webster's Management Organization in the Past Thirty Years (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Bradlee, Henry G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 133211136X ISBN 13: 9781332111367

Verlag: Forgotten Books, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from Centralized Public Utility Management: Development of Stone Webster's Management Organization in the Past Thirty Years

I was asked to tell you about the management contract, what it is, why it is, and what has been done under it, and when I tried to figure out what I should say, I found I could speak for many hours without exhausting the subject; so I will try to give you only a rough picture of some of the reasons which lead up to the contract and some of the reasons for its present form.

In the first place, Mr. Hunt has just said that there seems to be more or less ignorance with regard to this contract. The statement was made to me a few days ago that in addition to ignorance there was in a few cases the thought that there was something secret or mysterious about it. There was a vague feeling that it was not a subject on which one should ask questions. If any such idea exists it is wholly wrong. There is nothing secret, nothing mysterious about the contract; on the contrary it is open to everybody, not only in the Organization but outside the Organization, everybody in the United States who is interested in know ing about it. The only thing that we do want you to have in mind is that when you take this contract out and show it to people in your local community, you should explain to them what it means. It is necessarily pretty complicated. We do a great many things for the companies under our management, and in order to express these in the contract, we have to cover a great deal of ground. There is possibility of misunderstandings, and the contract should be explained as far as you may so that every one will understand it. The more people understand what we are doing and what that contract is, the better for all concerned.

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Excerpt from Centralized Public Utility Management: Development of Stone Webster's Management Organization in the Past Thirty Years

The only thing that we do want you to have in mind is that when you take this contract out and show it to people in your local community, you should explain to them what it means. It is necessarily pretty complicated. We do a great many things for the companies under our management, and in order to express these in the contract, we have to cover a great deal of ground. There is possibility of misunderstandings, and the contract should be explained as far as you may so that every one will understand it. The more people understand what we are doing and what that contract is, the better for all concerned.

I want to go back to that tree that Mr. Stone and Mr. Webster sat under when they agreed to go into business together. They decided at that time to go into the business of engineering. They had in mind in a vague way that they might do something in connection with public utility work, but for the first three years the business was confined entirely to construction and engineering. The thought of management came later.

In the early nineties the public utility business was in a pretty bad way. The investor was very much discouraged. The net earnings were very small and the situation was almost desperate. That gave Stone & Webster their opportunity. They were invited by investors here in Boston to look over certain properties and try to see if they could not find out what was the trouble with them and what should be done to improve the properties and get them on their feet. So Mr. Stone packed his bag and Mr. Webster packed his bag. and they started off. Before they were through, they had looked over something like seventy-five or one hundred properties, - at any rate, enough so that they had a pretty good picture of the industry as a whole. They found out a number of things. In the first place, those were the early days of the business. Properties were pretty poorly designed; the apparatus, generators, cars, and other parts of the properties were as good as could be obtained at that time, but they were poorly put together. The system as a whole was not properly designed for good public service. It was not designed for economy. Practically none of the ideas which we have now had been developed at all. There was no thought of the growth which was to take place in the future, no thought that there must be a strong financial structure to take care of it. The methods of finance were most unfavorable for raising money on a satisfactory basis, and the operation of the properties was decidedly uneconomical. Now those properties were all small. Even in the larger cities the individual companies were small because of competition. Before we became interested in the Seattle properties there were in Seattle, I think, eleven street railways and three electric light and power companies. When these were all combined the gross earnings amounted to only about $700,000. It was pretty clear that the one great difficulty of these companies was that they could not get the kind of men they needed, the brains and experience which they had to have in order to build themselves up. The gross earnings were not such that they could afford to have even the proper executives, much less to maintain on their forces skilled men who were familiar with detailed operations, construction and finance. The one great problem to be solved was to find men fitted for their positions whom the company could afford to employ.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Forgotten Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 133211136X
• ISBN 13: 9781332111367
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 50
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar