A Modest Titan
by Harry Hutchinson, Executive Editor  

George Westinghouse built an industrial empire based in Pittsburgh. So there's a connection when an independent film company based in that city produces a documentary of the man and his legacy.

There are other connections, as well. Westinghouse was an industrialist and engineer, who became president of ASME in 1910. The production house has connections to engineering, too.

The film, "Westinghouse," which is being released this month on DVD, was made by Inecom Entertainment Co., a film company that has a catalog of almost two dozen titles, mostly historical documentaries.

George Westinghouse: Is he a role model of enterprise for our times?

Inecom is the subsidiary of a company probably more familiar to engineers—Algor Inc., the engineering software company based in Pittsburgh. The genesis of Inecom goes back to Algor's production of Webcasts and Web courses for users and potential customers of the company's software. Inecom grew out of that, originally as an Internet TV service, heavy on documentary programming, at least in part because Michael Bussler, Algor's CEO, has a passion for history. Begun in 1999, it made a small business of the man's avocation.

Mark Bussler, Michael's son, is a producer at Inecom. He told us that the Internet TV programming mixed historical documentaries with other programs, including dance instruction videos and video game reviews. Within a few years, the company was distributing its programs as DVDs.

The idea for a film devoted to Westinghouse began when Mark Bussler met a historian, Edward Reis. Reis was executive director of the George Westinghouse Museum, until it merged last year with the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. Reis remains the center's Westinghouse historian.

Bussler was planning to talk about Westinghouse robots, including Elektro, the mechanical man of the 1939 World's Fair. Reis is not only an expert on Westinghouse, however, but also an admirer, and Bussler picked up his enthusiasm.

George Westinghouse held hundreds of patents and led a number of successful companies. But that's not why he is the subject of this documentary. According to Mark Bussler, who wrote, produced, and directed the film, the importance of Westinghouse is his character. He is presented in the film as a role model of ethical enterprise.

Westinghouse received his first patent, for a rotary steam engine, when he was 19. The railroad air brake launched his fortune. His winning the Battle of the Currents against Edison changed the way the world lives.

Elektro stood up for Westinghouse at the 1939
World's Fair; the rail air brake was a foundation
of the Westinghouse empire.

Through it all, it seems, George Westinghouse remained a modest, quiet man who played fair with employees. In the film, Reis says there was never a strike at any of the Westinghouse companies for the entire time he managed them. He was affectionately known as "The Old Man." The pall-bearers at his funeral in 1914 were veteran employees of the Westinghouse Air Brake Co.

The film features archive photos and motion pictures. Besides Reis, people interviewed for the film include James Sutherland, a retired Westinghouse engineer, and William Terbo, grandnephew of Nikola Tesla and head of the Tesla Memorial Society. The narrator, Carol Lee Espy, is a program host on KDKA Radio, which first broadcast from a roof of one of Westinghouse's buildings in Pittsburgh.

The DVD has a list price of $24.95 and will be available nationwide on April 8. Some sites, including Amazon.com and ASME Press (http://catalog.asme.org/books/DVD/Westinghouse_DVD.cfm), have been taking pre-orders. According to the manager of ASME Press, Mary Grace Stefanchik, this will be the second video program it has offered. The other DVD available is an industrial video, "Repairing Pipe-lines With Full Encirclement Welded Split Steel Sleeves." The Inecom DVD was picked up because of George Westinghouse's importance to the history of ASME and to the mechanical engineering profession, she said.

A recurring theme in Bussler's film is the contrast between Edison and Westinghouse. At one point, it mentions a curious cultural fact. When we hear "Edison," we think of the man, but "Westinghouse" is usually a company. As far as we can guess after watching this film, that would be all right with George Westinghouse.