Photo: A transformer, just like GE used to make in Catawba County.
In the later half of the 20th century, Catawba County was a player in supplying the electric grid with a key component to bringing power to homes throughout the United States. In 1956, On a 17 acre campus, right where Hickory, Newton and Conover meet, General Electric Corporation built an elaborate factory for making transformers.
During its first twenty years, GE served as a leading employer to the area. At one point, over 1,600 people worked at the facility, which was touted as the largest industrial operation in Catawba County. The diversification brought by GE to the workforce landscape made the county a “hub of progress.” The local effort to bring in new employers was seen statewide as a model for how southern industrialization should march into the future. When the cable (later fiber optic) industry came to town, the county seemed very progress oriented. It was an era when textile mills were beginning to shut down or move to places where labor was even cheaper. Likewise, furniture factories had become uncertain employers, due to layoffs when consumer buying softened. By diversifying, it seemed Catawba County had an answer.
Throughout the 20th century, General Electric was one of those companies that seemed to have always been around. Formed to consolidate all the work of Thomas Edison, GE made everything from clocks to washing machines, and chances were good that every household in America had at least one appliance with the GE monogram on it. It was a trusted name for consumers. Hickory’s GE workers felt that they were safe since they did not produce recession prone consumer goods.
Then came downsizing. A few folks were let go in 1975. Four years later, 170 got the axe in August, followed by 80 more in November. The company cited “reductions in housing and utility expansing, both closely tied to the transformer market” for the cuts. In 1980, another 300 were out of a job, then 230 more the year after that. A $6 million grant to study ways to make transformers more efficient only slowed, but did not stop the job loss.
It all came to an end forty years after it started. In 1996, the GE transformer plant announced plans to close. By that point the facility was losing $9 million per year. One displaced worker cited the North American Free Trade Agreement as incentive for GE to send his coil-winding job to Mexico where a replacement would make under $2 per hour for the same work. The Hickory employee was just a year shy of being able to take early retirement. He was understandably bitter about the situation and blamed GE’s “greedy owners.” The plant shut down completely in 1997.
Those that could retire, did. Some went back to school. The rest looked for other jobs in an already tight market. In 2016, the buildings were torn down. Since the demise of GE, furniture has seen a resurgence and other industry has moved in to continue the process of diversification, but the GE era was one of great promise, until the power went out.
