PAGE 2
7ire$fotte
DECEMBER, 1956
Awards For Suggestions
Exceed $1 Million Mark
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More than one million dollars. That’s where the figure now stands on the amount the
Company has paid employees for money-making suggestions. On November 14, a mechanic
at one of the Company’s home plants in Akron, made history when he received a check
which pushed the amount to the million-plus figure.
A $400-CHECK goes to Lewis F. Smith (right). Plant 1, Akron,
for his adopted proposal on improvements for tire manufactur
ing machines. Presenting the check is J. E. Trainer, Executive Vice
President.
Application Blanks Coming
For 1957 Scholarships
A college education nowadays
is estimated to be worth, on the
average, about $100,000.
To be sure, no one is going to
hand the proud possessor of a
college diploma a hundred “G”
notes.
But just the same, that is the
monetary worth of a college ed
ucation measured in terms of top
productivity over a lifetime of
earnings, according to latest
figures from the Council for Fi
nancial Aid to Education, Inc.
THIS MEANS that there is a
potential fortune waiting to be
claimed by sons and daughters
of Firestone employees.
Firestone families with chil
dren who are high school seniors,
will do well to become fully in
formed about the Company
Scholarship Program and the ed
ucational opportunities which it
is designed to provide.
Application forms for this
year’s Firestone Scholarship
Awards will be available at all
district offices and plants by
mid-December, the Scholarship
Committee has announced.
Plant supervisors will be glad
to discuss with parents the
Scholarship requirements.
The award went to Lewis F.
Smith, who has earned more
than $1,900 in bonuses from
Firestone for suggestions he has
made since 1931.
His latest check—and his 31st
award—was for $400. It was the
payoff for suggesting a technical
system for prolonging the use
fulness of certain machines used
in tire manufacturing. Mr.
Smith’s adopted proposal pro
vides for rebuilding the auto
matic cutoff and advance as
sembly carriages of tire bead
wire winding machines.
“The fact that our employees
have merited awards now total
ing $1,000,000 shows that there
is a wealth of genius in our
shops and production lines that
will benefit companies, em
ployees and consumers,” said
Executive Vice President J. E.
Trainer, in announcing the
award.
THIS MEANS that Firestone
has paid an extra million dollars
for brain power that otherwise
might have gone to waste, Mr.
Trainer noted.
Harvey S. Firestone, Company
Founder, started the suggestion
system in 1918 to give employees
an incentive for thinking of new
and better ways to do their jobs.
“During the 38 years since the
system was started. Firestone
employees have submitted more
than 200,000 suggestions,” said
Mr. Trainer. “Of these more than
60,000 have been adopted.”
The 200,000 suggestions sub
mitted range from brilliant in
ventions to personal intentions.
THE RECORD award of $5,000
went to Emil Ranallo of Fire
stone’s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
mileage sales department. He de
signed a mounting device for
tubeless tires which was adopted
for rapid production line mount
ing and inflation of tires by
automobile manufacturers.
In contrast, one young woman,
apparently concerned about her
marital status suggested: “Please
hire some good-looking single
men in our department.”
Another employee suggested
the company do something about
installing drinking fountains in
long distance buses.
MANAGER L. J. Alger of the
Firestone suggestion system, said
the man told him later it hadn’t
occurred to him to send the sug
gestion to the bus line.
“Surprisingly few crackpot
suggestions have been turned
in,” Mr. Alger said. “We do re
ceive a few letters suggesting that
supervisors be fired, that the
working day be reduced to one
hour or that everybody be grant-
COMPANY CHAIRMAN SPEAKS
Free Enterprise System, A Source Of America’s Greatness
The peace of the world—perhaps even the fate of the
world—depends upon the efforts we make to keep America
strong. This was one of the observations made by Harvey S.
Firestone, Jr., Company Chairman, in a recent address before
870 business and industrial leaders of Southern California.
Speaking at a greater Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce
luncheon meeting, the Chairman
told those attending that they
must intensify their efforts to
preserve and defend the in
dividual competitive free enter
prise system.
MR. FIRESTONE and other
members of the Company’s
Board of Directors were in Los
Angeles for a five-day series of
meetings, conferences and tours
of the Company’s California
plant.
“One of the great sources of
America’s strength lies in our
economic system, which we call
individual competitive free en
terprise. That is what each one
of us must intensify our in
dividual efforts to preserve and
defend.”
Mr. Firestone told his audience
that, “What we say and what we
do influence the whole world.
We are the chief proponents of
the individual competitive free
enterprise system. If we weaken
our support of this successful
economic system all the other
free nations of the world will
crash with us. But if we remain
strong economically, if we not
only defend but also extend free
enterprise, we shall keep our
country so strong that none will
dare to attack us or those who
stand with us on the side of
freedom.
"IT IS APPARENT, therefore,
that the peace of the world—
perhaps even the fate of the
world—depends upon the efforts
we make to keep America
strong.
“As you would naturally ex
pect, those who seek to destroy
our power and our prosperity
are concentrating their attacks
on this keystone of our success.
They know that if it collapses,
the entire structure will fall.
“We in America must guard
against taking liberty for grant
ed and regarding it as a natural
state of man. We must face the
fact that there are forces at work
which are striving to deprive us
of those fundamental rights for
which so many brave men have
fought and died. They seek to
return us to those dark days
when our people were subject to
the whims of tyrants.”
THE SPEAKER called atten
tion to the fact that, “In recent
years, propaganda mills both
here and abroad have been
grinding out misleading prom
ises. As a result an increasing
number of people are led to be
lieve that we should have a
paternalistic form of govern
ment on which they can lean
for security. This is a challenge
to business, and it is the high
responsibility of business to give
convincing evidence that real
and lasting security can be more
soundly acquired through the
American system of competitive
free enterprise.
“America’s system of individ
ual competitive free enterprise is
tried and proven successful,
whereas other systems are either
untried experiments or down
right failures, Mr. Firestone said.
"LET US SET the record
straight about the matter of
profits. Let us correct that idea
which has been spread by soap
box orators, wily subversives
and well-meaning but misled re
formers that the workers get the
smallest share of the income
which manufacturing produces
and that the owners get fabulous
amounts.
Let us tell them, that, actually,
out of every dollar of sales made
by manufacturers, 49 cents goes
for materials and supplies, of
—Turn to page 8
ed a raise. But the majority are
a sincere effort to help the Com
pany.”
THE SECOND highest award,
for $4,000, was paid to Mrs.
Lillian Ferrucci of the Fall
River, Mass., industrial products
plant. She devised a method of
improving the quality of Foamex
foamed latex cushions.
Mr. Trainer said the sugges
tion award system has no equal
for building the morale of an
organization.
“When an employee gets to
use his own ideas for the im
provement of the company and
its products, he is just naturally
a better, more interested work
er.”
See 'Editorial' on page 6.
Mr. Alger points out that if an
employee has a complaint he
usually has a remedy in mind.
“There’s nothing better than
letting the employee get his com
plaint off his chest in the form
of a suggestion and get paid for
it,” he observed.
MR. ALGER said most accept
able suggestions deal with im
provements of working condi
tions, quality, safety, economy
and sales. Awards are made in
proportion to the yearly savings
the suggestion affords.
One of Firestone’s better sug
gestions was made by the sug
gestion board itself in the com
pany’s Fall River, Mass., plant.
It adopted the system of paying
awards in silver dollars, pack
aged in a cloth bag with the
winner’s name.
The cry, “here comes ol’
moneybags” went up each time
an award was presented at the
work station of the man or wo
man making the suggestion, and
the number of suggestions in
creased 50 per cent.
Selected College Homecoming Queen
Miss Irva Smith was chosen
homecoming queen by members
of the football squad at Gardner-
Webb College, Boiling Springs,
recently. Dr. Philip L. Elliott,
President of the College, crown
ed the “Queen” at halftime cere
monies of the Gardner-Webb
and Lees-McRae game in Shelby.
A sophomore business educa
tion student at Gardner-Webb,
she is the daughter of David S.
Smith, plant guard, and Mrs.
Smith.
The employee’s daughter was
graduated from Ashley High
School, Gastonia. In her senior
year, she distinguished herself
through outstanding attainments
in the Young People’s Speaking
Tournament among area
churches of the Southern Baptist
Convention. In the summer of
1955 she was regional winner in
the speaking tournam'ent
traveled in Gaston and othei’
counties, speaking to young
pie’s church groups.
At college, she is active
student affairs.