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Central New York home to some of America's most famous engineers

CNY Business Journal (1994-95), Feb 20, 1995 by Grossman, Naomi

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Another Auburn native struck by the innovative spirit was Willard Bundy, whose invention of a time-recording clock ultimately laid the foundation of a billion-dollar company. The clock was the basis for the Bundy Time Recording Company of Binghamton, which Bundy created in 1890 with his brother Harlow. By 1900, the company, which was seeing tremendous growth, merged with another time-recorder manufacturer and renamed itself the International Time Recording Company of New York. Harlow was the general head of operations, and Willard continued to invent and design new products. In 191 1 the company consolidated with two other companies to become the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. One of its patents was for cards punched with holes that activated accounting machines; this turned out to be one of the greatest money-makers of all time.

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Three years later, Thomas J. Watson took over as general manager of the company, and 10 years later the company was renamed the international Business Machines Corporation. Today, IBM is one of the largest corporations in the world. The time-recording business, which was sold in the 1960s to Simplex, is way behind them, but it was the income from the punched-card business that enabled the company to move ahead with computer technology.

Unfortunately, Willard Bundy split with his brother because of a problem with his patents, which he wanted to give to his son rather than to the company. He moved his family to Syracuse, where he bought out the Dey Time Recording Company and set up the International Time Recording Company, which eventually went out of business. The Dey brothers went into the retail business in Syracuse. That store, too, eventually ceased operations, but not until it had given the city one of its landmark buildings near the comer of South Salina and West Jefferson streets.

The engineering spirit continued when Earl O'Brien met William Gere at high school in Solvay. Their design of the running track there led them both into the field of engineering, which Gere studied at Syracuse University and O'Brien at Cornell. After three attempts at putting together a company, the two finally succeeded in creating O'Brien and Gere in 1945. Their work on the Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Facilities in Syracuse quickly brought them a reputation in the field of wastewater management. One of their most important innovations in wastewater management was the Venturi flume, a screening device for sewage. The company also developed treatments that are still running today, combining textile and municipal waste. Their Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) treatment plant that stands next to the RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was the largest in the world at the time that O'Brien and Gere designed and built it in the 1980s.

Environmental awareness and new legislation in the 1970s pushed the company in the direction of environmental engineering, which remains a focus to this day. One of their newest projects involves renovating buildings that have been declared environmentally hazardous.

Central New York home to some of America's most famous engineers

CNY Business Journal (1994-95), Feb 20, 1995 by Grossman, Naomi

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