GE’s sponsorship of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration kicked-off yesterday, with a number of tributes to the 40th President — from friends and former colleagues to some of the 250,000 GE employees he visited during his eight years as a GE goodwill ambassador. Among those highlighting the rapport forged with GE staffers over the years — and the role GE played in Reagan’s life — was author Thomas W. Evans, who writes on GE’s Reagan Centennial website: “Hugh Sidey of Time/Life, who covered every president from Eisenhower through George W. Bush, commented that he thought Reagan’s speeches in England and Russia were the finest ever given abroad by an American leader. When he asked a White House speechwriter who had written these offerings, he was told: ‘Reagan. They were actually pretty much the speeches he had given when he worked for General Electric.’”
In the lab: Ronald Reagan is seen here in 1954 at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York — which is the headquarters of GE’s technology development arm.
Evans recalled that “when Reagan gave his nationally-televised speech in support of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in October of 1964, David Broder, the dean of the Washington press corps, described it as ‘the most successful political debut since William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech in 1896.’ The speaker told the press that the address had been developed during his GE years, when, in addition to his television duties, he spent a quarter of his time traveling the country to speak with the company’s employees and their neighbors…. He had a vision which developed from study and talks with GE workers and executives all over the country.”
Paging Mr. Reagan: At the Reagan Centennial event in Simi Valley, Calif. last night, GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt and former first lady Nancy Reagan flipped through a photo album from her husband’s days on GE Theater, which he hosted from 1954 to 1962. Among those in attendance were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of State George Schultz, T. Boone Pickens, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Among the employees Reagan met during his years as host of TV’s General Electric Theater and as our goodwill ambassador was Ralph Garbutt. In the audio slideshow below, he recalls a chance meeting with Reagan at an early-morning sales meeting in the middle of blinding New England blizzard:
And Rich Overholtzer recalls Reagan dropping into his GE cubicle one afternoon — just to talk sports — in the audio slideshow below.
As Jeff Immelt said about Reagan in his prepared remarks for last night’s talk at the Reagan Presidential Library: “He traveled the breadth of the country, riding trains to visit GE plants, speaking hundreds of times to tens of thousands of workers. He started at dawn and would get to his hotel after midnight. And then he’d do it all over again the next day…. Mr. Reagan walked every assembly line at GE. Every single one… He heard from them their stories of how bright and hard working people can create success. Those lessons, too, became articles of faith for the man who didn’t believe in walls, economic or political.”
* A rebroadcast of Jeff’s speech will be available on the Reagan Library website later today
* Read “The Reagan centennial: A legacy of progress” on GE Reports
* Read GE’s Centennial announcement
* Read “U.S. Must Revive Exports, Optimism, GE’s Immelt Says” from Bloomberg
* Read coverage by Matt Lewis: “GE and Ronald Reagan: The Mutual Gift That Keeps on Giving”
* Listen to a podcast of Matt Lewis’ interview with Jeff Immelt
* Listen to a podcast with GE’s Gary Sheffer and the Reagan Foundation’s John Heubusch
* Read event coverage of Jeff’s speech at the Reagan Library from the Ventura County Star
* Read “Reagan ‘GE Theater’ tapes restored, go to library” from The Associated Press
* See more of Reagan’s General Electric Theater spots by clicking the videos in this slideshow
* Read Reagan essays on our website by Thomas W. Evans, Peggy Noonan, Andrea Mitchell, Tom Brokaw, and Rudy Giuliani