Archive:General Electric Specialty Control Plant

General Electric Specialty Control Plant is a Template:Convert/LoffAoffDbSonNa historic factory complex located in Waynesboro, Virginia. The property, a former airport, was acquired by General Electric in 1953. The Waynesboro plant was one of some 120 individual operating departments created as part of a decentralization effort by the General Electric Corporation. The Specialty Control Plant was responsible for the a number of new technologies in areas ranging from military products to space travel to computer technology.

The facility was sold to GENICOM on October 21, 1983. In 2000, GENICOM entered bankruptcy and the building was sold to the newly formed Solutions Way Management. The former manufacturing plant is operated as a warehouse and shipping facility..

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Solutions Way Management now rents much of the facility to companies for light manufacturing, warehousing and distribution.

Background

In the early 1950s the General Electric Company was a highly centralized operation with six major manufacturing "works". They were located in Schenectady, New York; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Lynn, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Erie, Pennsylvania; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. At that time, under Ralph Cordiner's presidency, a major decentralization occurred whereby larger business groups were divided into individual operating departments, with new plants built in many different locations across the country.

The previous Industrial Control Division, located in Schenectady, New York, was subdivided into four such departments. The Industry Control Department, building control systems for large industry such as cranes, steel, paper, marine and submarine panels, and similar segments of industry, was located in Salem, Virginia. The General Purpose Control Department, building smaller control components such as relays and contractors for general industrial applications, was located in Bloomington, Illinois. The Appliance Control Department, building control systems for the company's consumer products; i.e., refrigerators, oil burners, and small switching devices, was located in Morrison, Illinois. Each of these had a common product line sufficient for efficient and viable operation as separate entities, but the Specialty Control Department came to Waynesboro, Virginia with the remaining heterogeneous components of the original Control Division, no one of which could survive as a separate entity.

History

1950s

In 1953, GE purchased the old, no longer used, Waynesboro airport, consisting of 75 acres of land located just west of the Norfolk & Western Railroad. Construction of the new plant to house the Specialty Control Department began, and by the summer of 1954 had reached a point where production of photoelectric devices was begun with the relocation of supervisory personnel from Schenectady.

At its peak, the plant produced an extensive and highly varied range of products, including numerical control systems, photoelectric devices, hot-box detectors, regulators and static exciters, relays, automation systems, nuclear-derived thickness gauges, and automotive and aerospace control systems. The plant supplied components to the NASA Apollo program.

In 1958, a crisis occurred when Senator Harry Byrd, who controlled politics in Virginia, launched a program of massive resistance to the integration of blacks and whites, with the result that most public schools in Virginia were closed. Because 10,000 children had no means of public education, private schools began to be formed. GE management felt that this was an issue that should be addressed, and empowered Specialty Controls management to speak out. Dr. L.T. Rader, General Manager of the Specialty Control, representing the GE plants in Virginia gave many talks on the subject, mainly in northern Virginia, and argued that no Fortune 500 company would continue to operate in Virginia if the state's segregation policy continued. The policy was rescinded, in part due to GE's opposition.

1960s and 1970s

In the late 1960s, the Terminet product line was first offered. Terminet was a line of printer terminals that used solid-state technology and printed circuit boards, and offered an alternative technology in the computer and business data field that was then dominated primarily by Teletype. The Terminet 300 was an early dot-matrix printer, which found immediate use as a ticker tape printer.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the Specialty Control Plant began shrinking as components were transferred elsewhere, leaving the plant primarly occupied with the Terminet and relays.

1980s and 1990s

In 1983 a new company was formed with the name Genicom Corporation, and the Wayensboro operated was sold to the new company. The venture found initial success,, and its stock went public in 1987–8.

During the 1990s impact printer technology was overtaken by laser Printers, and Genicom declared bankruptcy in 2001. The remnants was taken over by Northrop Grumman, who continued too provide service for remaining impact printers.

2000s

Following a 2008 renovation that followed historic preservation standards, the facility was taken over from Northrop Grumman in 2010 by Solutions Way Management, which operates the facility as a warehousing and shipping operation.