Obituary [James Burke]

James Burke (A´93, M´03, F´13) retired chairman of the board, Burke Electric Company, Erie, Pa., and president of the Edison Pioneers, died January 21, 1940. He was born April 7, 1893, at London, Eng., and educated there coming to New York in 1888. In 1889 he was employed at the Edison Machine Works, Schenectady, N. Y., in the testing department, and was assigned as assistant to Thomas A. Edison when the latter was at Schenectady. When the company´s first student course was organized in 1889, Mr. Burke was the first to sign up for it. Later transferred to the engineering department he continued with the company and its successors, the Edison General Electric Company and General Electric Company, until 1894. During the next four years he was in private consulting practice in New York. In 1898 he became consulting engineer for the Bergmann Elektromotoren and Dynamo Works, Berlin, Germany, and in the same year gave up his consulting practice to become its technical director and chief engineer, a position he held until 1902, when he returned to private practice. In 1904 he formed and became president of the Burke Electric Company. He was president until 1928 and then chairman of the board until 1933, when he retired but continued to maintain an advisory interest in the company. He represented both the AIEE and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association on the United States national committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission and was president of the Commission in 1935. He was well known as an inventor. He had served on the standards and electrical machinery committees of the AIEE, and was also a member of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Welding Society and past president of NEMA. He had been president of the Edison Pioneers for three years.