General Engineering history

In 1955 the navy launched the submarine Seawolf, the world’s first nuclear-powered vessel, with a reactor developed by General Electric.

That year NBC pioneered the first coast-to-coast transmission of a colour television broadcast, and in 1956 it made the first television broadcast recorded on videotape (rather than presented live).

And in 1957 the company received a license from the Atomic Energy Commission to operate a nuclear-power reactor, the first license granted in the United States for a privately owned generating station.

In 1961 it opened a research center for aerospace projects, and by the end of the decade had more than 6,000 employees involved in 37 projects related to the moon landing.

GE was also faced with the possibility of its first labor strike since 1969 when Jack Welch and Edward Fire, the president of the International Union of Electronic Workers (IUE), became involved in an intense war of words over the job security of union workers.

When by 1980 General Electric had received no new orders for plants in five years, nuclear power began to look more and more like a prime candidate for divestment.

These figures also represented huge gains since Welch took over in 1981, when the company posted profits of $ 1.6 billion on sales of $27.2 billion.

In 1986 GE also purchased the Employers Reinsurance Corporation, a financial-services company, from Texaco, for $1.1 billion, and an 80% interest in Kidder Peabody and Company, an investment-banking firm, for $600 million, greatly broadening its financial services division.

In 1987, however, GE sold RCA’s consumer electronics division to Thomson SA, a state-owned French firm, and purchased Thomson’s medical technology division.

By 1988 the company's restructuring efforts had resulted in the downsizing of 100,000 employees.

In 1989 GE agreed to combine its European business interests in appliances, medical systems, electrical distribution, and power systems with the formerly unrelated British corporation General Electric Company.

In 1992 GE signaled its intent to step up overseas activity with the purchase of 50 percent of the European appliance business of Britain’s General Electric Company (GEC). The two companies also made agreements related to their medical, power systems, and electrical distribution businesses.

Homewood, Illinois: Business One Irwin, 1993.

In the wake of the turmoil, Michael Carpenter was terminated as Kidder's chair, and the company was sold to Paine Webber in 1994.

Going into 1995, ongoing efforts by Welch to boost productivity, increase service sales, and expand internationally boded well for GE’s long-term future.

In 1996 the company celebrated its 100th year as part of the Dow Jones Index; GE was the only company remaining from the original list.

The most recent stock split was in 1997 (2 for 1). GE's market capitalization (the total value of all its stock) is the highest in the world, at more than $245 billion.

Overall revenues exceeded the $100 billion mark for the first time in 1998, while the continuing stellar growth at GE Capital led that unit to generate nearly half of GE's revenues by the end of the decade.

In October 2000 he swooped in to break up a planned $40 billion merger of United Technologies Corporation and Honeywell International Inc.

Welch finally retired soon thereafter, with Immelt taking over as chairman and CEO in September 2001.

Concerns about whether the company could continue its stellar earnings performance and about its accounting practices sent GE's stock sharply lower in 2002.

The staggering size of General Electric, which ranked fifth in the Fortune 500 in 2003, becomes even more evident through the revelation that each of the company's 11 operating units, if listed separately, would qualify as a Fortune 500 company.

The deal, which added about $8.5 billion in assets to the GE Commercial Finance unit, closed in January 2004.

By 2005, GE was aiming to outsource $5 billion of parts and services from China and simultaneously grow sales in China to a like figure.