F F Rockwell Popular Books

F F Rockwell Biography & Facts

Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. At its peak, Rockwell International was No. 27 on the Fortune 500 list, with assets of over $8 billion, sales of $27 billion and 115,000 employees. Rockwell International's predecessor was Rockwell Manufacturing Company, founded in 1919 by Willard Rockwell. In 1968, Rockwell Manufacturing Company included seven operating divisions manufacturing industrial valves, German 2-cycle motors, power tools, gas and water meters. In 1973, it was combined with the aerospace products and renamed Rockwell International. It was split into various companies beginning in the 1980s, including its final split in 2001 into Rockwell Automation and Rockwell Collins. History Rockwell Manufacturing Company Boston-born Willard Rockwell (1888–1978) made his fortune with the invention and successful launch of a new bearing system for truck axles in 1919. He merged his Oshkosh, Wisconsin-based operation with the Timken-Detroit Axle Company (current Meritor Inc.) in 1928, rising to become chairman of its board in 1940. Rockwell also drew on the strengths of several of George Westinghouse's concerns, and Westinghouse is considered a co-founder of the company.In 1945, Rockwell Manufacturing Company acquired Delta Machinery and renamed it the Delta Power Tool Division of Rockwell Manufacturing Company and continued to manufacture in Milwaukee. In 1966, Rockwell invented the world's first power miter saw. In 1981, Rockwell's power tool group was acquired by Pentair and re-branded Delta Machinery. Pentair's Tools group was acquired by Black & Decker in 2005. Since 2011, Delta has been a subsidiary of Chang Type Industrial Co., Ltd. of China. In 1956, Rockwell Manufacturing Co. bought Walker-Turner from Kearney and Trecker. In 1957, Walker-Turner operations were closed down in Plainfield, New Jersey and moved to Bellefontaine, Ohio and Tupelo, Mississippi.Timken-Detroit merged in 1953 with the Standard Steel Spring Company, forming the Rockwell Spring and Axle Company. After various mergers with automotive suppliers, it comprised about 10 to 20 factories in the Upper Midwestern U.S. and southern Ontario, and in 1958 renamed itself Rockwell-Standard Corporation. Pittsburgh-based Rockwell-Standard Corp. then acquired and merged with Los Angeles-based North American Aviation to form North American Rockwell in September 1967. It then purchased Miehle-Goss-Dexter, the largest supplier of printing presses, and in 1973, acquired Collins Radio, a major avionics supplier.In 1968, Sterling Faucet Company was bought by Rockwell Manufacturing Co. and it became a subsidiary of the company. 1968–1974 Michael W. Hodges (who had also served as Corporate Director Manufacturing and later as CEO and 'Geschäftsführer' (Managing Director) of the German-based Engine Division) joined Rockwell Manufacturing Company in 1968 as Corporate Director Quality Assurance. He was appointed member of the Board of Directors of Rockwell GMBH Germany and Dikkers Valve Products LLC Netherlands. Prior to Rockwell, Michael Hodges was a physicist with NASA and aerospace management with Martin-Marietta Corp. in Orlando, Fl. During Hodges' seven years with Rockwell there were approximately 90,000 employees in seven divisions: the Valve Division with products for the gas and oil industry with plants located in Barberton, Ohio, Raleigh, NC, Sulfur Springs, Tx., and Kearney, Nebraska, the Gas Products Division of meters and regulators in Dubois, Pa, the Municipal Water Meter Division in Uniontown, Pa., the Power Tool Division in Syracuse, NY, Jackson, Tenn., Tupelo, Miss., and Columbia, SC, the Transportation Division in Atchison, Kansas with a large steel foundry of products for the automotive, railway and rapid-transit industry, the Sterling Faucet Division in Reedsville, WV, and the Engine Division in Pinneberg, Germany (previously ILO-Motorenwerke, founded 1911 and acquired by Rockwell in 1959), manufacturing 2-cycle gas-driven motors for developing nation products including motor tillers, water pumps, sprayers, cement mixers, tampers and mopeds as well as snowmobile- and all-terrain vehicle engines for North America. A significantly different direction was planned starting in 1973 away from the business model developed since 1945 by the founder Willard Rockwell (1888–1978). The founder's son, Willard Rockwell Jr., appeared taking the company in a new direction, replacing the founder's model of strong medium-size manufacturing companies with diverse industrial products with strong industrial engineering and quality control in multiple locations – to a new model leveraging assets of the profitable seven manufacturing divisions of Rockwell Manufacturing Company into a new business model of a dominant government-serving (NASA, Defense Dept.) aerospace company, named Rockwell International, which included North American Aviation, of products such as the Space Shuttle. By the end of the 1980s, Rockwell International began to sell-off its prior industrial product manufacturing divisions, starting with the Valve Division, leading to the sale of all divisions and the end of the Rockwell names > Rockwell Manufacturing Company, North American Rockwell, and Rockwell International In 1973, North American Rockwell merged with Rockwell Manufacturing, run by Willard Rockwell Jr., to form Rockwell International. In the same year, the company acquired Admiral Radio and TV for US$500 million. In 1979, the appliance division was sold to Magic Chef. Apex and break-up In 1978, Rockwell released AIM-65, a one board microprocessor development board based on the MOS Technology 6502. With the death of company founder and first CEO Willard F. Rockwell in 1978, and the stepping down of his son Willard Rockwell Jr. in 1979 as the second CEO, Bob Anderson became CEO and led the company through the 1980s when it became the largest U.S. defense contractor and largest NASA contractor. Rockwell acquired the privately held Allen-Bradley Company for US$1.6 billion in February 1985 – US$1 billion of which was cash – and became a producer of industrial automation hardware and software. During the 1980s, Anderson, his CFO Bob dePalma, and the Rockwell management team built the company to #27 on the Fortune 500 list. It boasted sales of US$12 billion, roughly US$32 billion in 2019, and assets of over US$8 billion, roughly US$21 billion in 2019. Its workforce of over 115,000 was organized into nine major divisions – Space, Aircraft, Defense Electronics, Commercial Electronics, Light Duty Automotive Components, Heavy Duty Automotive Components, Printing Presses, Valves and Meters, and Industrial Automation. Rockwell International was a major employer in Southern California, northern Ohio, northern Georgia, eastern Oklahoma, Michigan, .... Discover the F F Rockwell popular books. Find the top 100 most popular F F Rockwell books.