Welcome to The Sturtevant Guestbook!

Great site, do you know where I can get my hands on a performance curves for Sturtevant/Westinghouse fans model 3045 DIDW, etc?, Thanks

I find it amazing to read about my ancestors this way. Great Site!

I am currently a project coordinator for The IIF division of ALPHAIR. We currently service and manufacture new fans that are based on the American Standard: Series 106, 134, 81 and 82 as well as series 146. We also service and sell the cast iron blower that was called series 86. Any questions please contact me.

hello
I'm a university student and scholarship in the case of centrifugal fan.
I demand that you send me information in case condition design and map new centrifugal fan
tank you very match.

A local theater has a strutevant #145 fan that is still in use. A few days ago a few of the blades broke off and the owner wants to see if it can be fixed. I was seeing if i could find any inf, when i ran across you website. if you have any drawings/ or info on who can repair these old blowers, please e-mail me. thanks.

I AM THE FORMER HUSBAND OF THE LATE SALLY STURTEVANT SARTOR, DAUGHTER OF PHOBE CREEL WHICH IS LISTED IN YOUR GENEALOGY SECTION.

Very nice website, great history!
What brought me here is that I was searching for parts for my Rexvane Fan, Design 3. Any help on locating parts or prints would be appreciated.

Regards
Mike Waag

Great web site. Found out things about my family that I didn't know.
Thanks for keepin the site up.

Regards,
KipFoss

I grew up in Readville, 1935 -1959, and have always been interested learning more about the B. F. Sturtevant Hyde Park (Readville) Factory. Thanks to the internet and sites like yours, I have been able to do so.
Congratulations on a job well done in the design and comprehensive content of your website.

Thank you also for making this information readily available.

I began my Sturtevant career in 1975 as a sales engineer located in Chicago calling many of the same customers Don Shaw mentions. I too was hired by Walter McNulty. I opened the Kansas City sales office in 1978 and I was still there in 1985 when we were sold. I enjoyed my stay at Sturtevant more than any job I have had since. The people were great.

Currently work for a motor repair shop. Was just asked if Sturtevant was still in business. We have a customer with one of these motors on their roof. As you know a very large 1 1/2 hp.

I think your site is wonderful.

i love this site i don land ohhhhh

I came to work for Westinghouse Sturtevant in 1975 as a mechanical engineer out of college, being the first professional hire by Truman Netherton after a long hiring freeze. My first project was to design and build a new Centrifugal Babbiting Machine to improve the safety and productivity of the manufacturing bearing casting operation. With the help of many skilled toolmakers(including Ralph Shields), and other great professionals including Bob Galante, Steve Thayer, Ed Bradshaw, Rocky Rockwood (my boss), I went on to have my design turned into a working machine built entirely in our own plant and tool room. After successful testing, we deployed it onto the manufacturing floor in D building where an immediate tripling in productivity occurred and more importantly, we changed from having workers handling molten lead to merely pressing a button on a machine which completely automated the process and improved quality. The machine was patented by Westinghouse in 1976 and I received the Westinghouse Special Patent Award for my design.

After achieving my MBA at night at Boston University, (paid for by Westinghouse) I was promoted to Manufacturing Engineering and Planning Manager(1979) and then to Manufacturing Operations Manager(1981) and then to Manufacturing Plant Manager in 1983. During these years, we developed and installed an automated punching machine(designed and built in our plant), state of the art rolling equipment, new larger shaft lathes, new balancing equipment, several new CNC machining centers, robotic welding equipment and processes, new inlet vane fixturing equipment, state of the art welding processes, implementation of CADD/CAM technology and much more.

Our plant became the world's best equipped and highest quality fan manufacturing facility in the industry. Sturtevant did not lose money in the 80s prior to the sale to American Davidson....on the contrary, we became a sought after facility due to a dominance in the industry. But Westinghouse, with a completely depreciated facility, saw an opportunity to gain cash through the divestiture of Sturtevant along with many businesses which did not show the potential to achieve double digit profits being demanded by the board and shareholders.

So instead of us acquiring the lower, less capable American Davidson or Buffalo Forge or Howden, the reverse became true. Not knowing what to do with the strength and capabilities of the Hyde Park facility, AD chose to sell off much of the equipment and downgrade the technology to the point that the once great facility and its workforce was only a mere shadow of its former self.

This was truly a needless shame and one that unfortunately has become commonplace in the US manufacturing landscape. I only wish I had the wisdom and the resources back then that I do today so I could have arranged an employee purchase of this business to possibly have changed its fate.

The people of Westinghouse Sturtevant from 1975 to 1985 that I had the privilege of knowing were truly a unique group of people with a diverse range of personalities and characters, but together, we were unlike any other group I have ever known. Pride, quality and loyalty to each other and the business steeped in rich history and tradition, were some of the core strengths of this company from the IAM union workers to the top management of Truman Netherton. I feel lucky that I was able to have started and ended my corporate career surrounded by these people.

Feeling powerless to stop the sale, I left Sturtevant in 1985 when it was taken over by American Davidson since I did not want to witness the destruction of this great American plant or the layoffs that were sure to come. Being disgusted with corporate behavior and vowing to never manage a company that would have to layoff workers again, I became an entrepreneur and today enjoy being the head of my own company as president of Fore Kicks Sports Complex which designs, builds and runs indoor state of the art sports centers.

I have not been back to the old plant in Hyde Park for nearly 19 years until today when I stopped by. With mixed emotions, I toured the once bustling halls and walked through the now vacant and disheveled D and F buildings where once the sounds of over 700 workers could be heard. I could just see the likes of John Spide, Fred Niethold, Mark Wilson, Sharon Monroe, Bert Cole, Dom Folco, Dick Potter, Ajit Prassad, Doug Johnson, Bernie Flynn, Will Jackson, Rich Hansen, Ed Bradshaw and all of the IAM Westinghouse employees scurrying about. I felt like I was looking at the Titanic sitting silently at the bottom of the ocean just rotting away.

It was great to run across two people in the front office from the former Westinghouse era...John Prata and Ray Zeman. Together we caught up on old memories, which I guess prompted me to write this to you tonight. I hope that it gives you a more personal insight of one person's memories of what it was like to have worked at Westinghouse Sturtevant, and the loss I think we all felt when it ceased to exist.

I joined Sturtevant in 1963 in Akron Ohio Sales Office, working for Walter J McNulty. We reported to Henry Geisller, as we sold the Heavy Duty Power Plant Apparatus. I was then sent out to Chicago where Sturtevant was out of favor with not only the Power Companies, but with the large Consulting Engineers like Sargent & Lundy.

A partner at Sargent & Lundy told me that if I was good, knew what I was talking about, it would take 3 years before I got my first order since that was the average cycle between fan purchases by each partner. Sure enough, it was almost a year to the day and I got my first order from that same partner and my knowledge and honesty did the trick. Before I left there in 1974 to go to Hyde Park, I had 85% of the Midwestern market as well as customers all across the South due to the Engineers located in Chicago. Truman Netherton and Alan Shadgett brought me back to Hyde Park as the product Manager. Eventually I attended all the staff meeting with them as we became a trio trying to use Marketing to solve our internal structural problems.We turned the Division around and back to profitability, although at great personal cost. We worked 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, and felt at times as though we had airplanes strapped to our backs. I almost lost my family, but we saved a lot of jobs, at least for a while. I went on to become Sales Manager, and the Marketing Manager before we were sold out to the South Africans which was another stab in the back for those who did not have enough time to take the Westinghouse early retirement- I was short one year and lost thousands of dollars.

But I have very fond memories of the people both in the field and in the plant. I was always proud to take our customers through the plant. I too remember the Tom Teager's and his brother Bob, brilliant young men who if we had had them a few years earlier, who knows, we might have kept the old girls going longer.

I am looking for specifications on a Size 45 blower with s/n 52167. It appears to have about a 21"" inlet diameter and is powered by a 30HP motor. We would like to find a chart that lists CFM capacity and HP requirements at various static pressures. Anything like that available?

Thanks!