death_date awards birth_date article_title name
25 november 1935 ieee edison medal -lrb- 1931 -rrb- 6 may 1862 edwin w. rice
 edwin w. rice
edwin w. rice

edwin wilbur rice , jr. -lrb- la crosse , wisconsin , 6 may 1862 - schenectady , new york , 25 november 1935 -rrb- was a president and considered one of the three fathers of general electric -lrb- along with elihu thomson and charles a. coffin -rrb- .
he attended the boys ' central high school in philadelphia and was a student of elihu thomson .
rice graduated in 1880 and considered going to yale but decided to join thomson in new britain , connecticut , at the american electric company as thomson 's assistant at $ 30 a month .
in 1883 he continued with thomson , and moved from new britain to lynn , massachusetts to work for the newly formed thomson-houston electric company .
there he worked on converting thomson 's inventions into manufactured products .
in 1885 he became the factory superindent when john meech moved to europe to head up thomson-houston international .
under rice the lynn factory grew from almost nothing in 1883 to an enterprise with $ 10 million in sales and 4,000 employees in 1892 .
primary products included arc light systems , electrical generators , dynamos , meters , transformers , and electric motors .
by 1892 the primary products were electric trolley car systems and the company had built over 2700 electric trolley cars and 870 electric generator stations .
the entire factory reported to rice and in 1890 supervisors who reported to him included d.m barton - production manager , i.f.baker - mechanical superintendent , g.e.emmons - factory auditor , w.h.knight - chef electrical engineer , and a.i.rohrer - chef assistant .
in 1892 general electric company was created after a merger with edison general electric .
rice was originally its technical director .
he became , in 1896 , vice president in charge of manufacturing and engineering , and eventually senior vice president .
in 1913 he was chosen president of the company replacing charles a. coffin who moved on to be the chairman of the board of ge .
when rice retired in 1922 was made honorary chairman of the board .
rice was elected president in 1917 of the american institute of electrical engineers -lrb- aiee -rrb- .
in 1931 the aiee awarded him the edison medal `` for his contributions to the development of electrical systems and his encouragement of scientific research in industry . ''
