William D. Coolidge: Shirt-sleeves manager: Famous for two wide-ranging inventions, this engineer proved himself an innovative manager as he guided the renowned GE Research Laboratory through some of its most turbulent years

¿Coolidge arrived to commence work.¿Thus did the founder of General Electric Co.´s Research Laboratory, Willis R. Whitney, record the arrival of his famous successor on Sept. 11, 1905. Whitney´s laconic notebook entry gives little inkling that he recognized how truly fortunate GE was to have snared William D. Coolidge. Whitney´s second-in-command at the time, Laurence A. Hawkins, would later describe Coolidge as Whitney´s¿most resourceful experimenter and right-hand man.¿