Sydney R. Inch – Electrical Engineer for Milltown dam project – ‘EBASCO’ Chairman
Sydney R. Inch – EBASCO Chairman
Sydney R. Inch, an electrical engineer, lived and worked in Missoula during the first decade of the 20th. Century. Born in England he made his career in the U.S., starting in 1900 as an electrical plant operator at a power plant on the Big Hole River and then moved to Butte to work for Butte Electric & Power Co. In 1904 he moved to Missoula to work for the Missoula Light and Power Company. He became identified with a proposed one-man railroad car system while working in Missoula and even tested the idea for a time. He wrote a detailed paper on the subject that is available on the internet (see link below). Inch’s career skyrocketed after he left Missoula to work for Utah Power & Light Company in 1912. He eventually became president of the EBASCO, a huge engineering conglomerate that became the subject of government intervention in 1935. It was one of the largest contracting firms in the United States at that time.
Below are some articles and excerpts about him that appeared in various publications.
The article below is from ELECTRICAL WORLD February 1, 1913.
Mr. S. R. Inch, whose appointment as general superintendent of the Utah Power & Light Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, was noted in the Electrical World of Dec. 21, 1912, was apprenticed in accordance with the English system to the Electricity Supply Works, Taunton, England, and received his technical education at Finsbury Technical College, London. He was for a time associated with the Lithanode Electric Storage Battery Company of London, but in 1900 he entered the employ of the Montana Power Transmission Company. Later he was associated with the Butte (Mont.) Electric & Power Company and in 1904 accepted the position of manager of the Missoula (Mont.) Light & Power Company. Various extensions and consolidations have built up these properties to include the Clark-Missoula Power Company, the Missoula Light & Water Company and the Missoula Street Railway, and it was the management of these combined properties that Mr. Inch relinquished in order to take up his present position. He was the originator of the Missoula one-man prepayment car and read a paper on its operation before the Chicago convention of the American Electric Railway Association last October.[1] Mr. Inch was associated with the Missoula properties, which are owned by former United States Senator W. A. Clark, for nearly ten years, and the company with which he is now connected is a consolidation of a number of companies which operate in Utah, Idaho and Colorado, the most important of which is the Telluride Power Company. The properties have about 1000 miles of high-tension transmission lines and develop more than 100,000 hp. Water-power resources sufficient to yield 100,000 hp additional are owned by the combination, which will furnish energy for the operation of the mountain section of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, plans for the electrification of which were referred to recently in Electrical World.
Below is a Sydney R. Inch obituary from The New York Times March 13, 1964.
Sydney Inch Dies; A Utilities Aide
Ex-Head of Electric Bond and Share Company, 85
San Diego, Calif., March 12 (UPI) – Sydney R Inch, a pioneer in the development of electric utilities and a former director of the General Dynamics Corporation, died today. He was 85 years old.
Was Electrical Engineer
Mr. Inch, an electrical engineer, became president of the Electric Bond and Share Company, one of the nation’s largest utility holding companies, in 1933.
At the same time he was elected vice chairman of the American and Foreign Power Company, and president of the United Gas Corporation.
Mr. Inch was a leader in the fight against the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935, which required corporation simplification and geographical integration of public utilities.
In 1940, to overcome objections raised by the Securities and Exchange Commission to the top executive setup of the $3 billion Electric Bond and Share Company, he resigned as president. He took up his sole new duties as president of Ebasco Services, Inc., the subsidiary service organization of the Bond and Share system. He had been president of Ebasco since 1935.
Mr. Inch served as vice chairman and a director of Ebasco from 1945 to 1950. He became a director of Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation, predecessor of General Dynamics-Convair of San Diego in 1947. He retired from the General Dynamics Board in 1955.
He was born in England and attended Finsbury Technical College in London. He came to the United States in 1900 and began with the Montana Power Transmission Company in Butte. Later he was with the Butte Electric and Power Company, and managed the Missoula Light and Water Company.
In 1913 he became general superintendent of the Utah Power and Light Company. He joined Electric Bond and Share as vice president in 1924.
Excerpt below is from an article in Cattaraugus Republican Nov. 27, 1935:
BIG HOLDING COMPANY SUED, SHIFTS CHAIN
Bond & Share Dissolves Interlocking System, Set Up ‘Ebasco Services’ to Operate Subsidiaries
New York, Nov. 27 (AP) – The giant Electric Bond & Share Company announced dissolution of its “interlocking relationships with its holding and operating companies” last night following institution of a suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking to compel it to register under the Holding Company Act.
The company announced it was setting up “the Ebasco Services, Inc.,” which would take over “all service contracts with operating utilities . . . under which Electric Bond & Share heretofore had rendered services.” The new firm, the statement added, is “completely owned” by Electric Bond & Share.
S. R. Inch, president of Electric Bond & Share, said later the action “has not changed the position of the parent unit as a holding company.”
Below is an article from Wikipedia regarding EBASCO:
Electric Bond and Share Company
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The Electric Bond and Share Company was originally a holding company that sold securities of electric utilities. It was created by General Electric in 1905. The company was restructured after the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Later known as EBASCO Services, it provided engineering consulting and construction services. Among other projects EBASCO designed nuclear power plants. By the 1980s, EBASCO had three divisions: EBASCO Engineering, which provided engineering design and A/E services, EBASCO Environmental, which provided environmental engineering and science services, and EBASCO Constructors, which provided construction and construction management. EBASCO Engineering and Constructors were sold to Raytheon in 1993 and became part of a Raytheon subsidiary, United Engineers and Constructors. EBASCO Environmental was sold to Foster Wheeler, Inc., becoming Foster Wheeler Environmental.[1]
Ebasco (EBS) was included in Dow Jones Utility Average from 1938 to 1947.[2]
Ebasco Services was one of major US architect-engineers, coordinated design of many nuclear power plants both in USA and outside [3][4] including the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (units 1, 2 and 6).[5]