YALE News Release

4/10/96

CONTACT: Cynthia L. Atwood #202

For Immediate Release: April 10, 1996

United Technologies CEO to Deliver Sheffield Address at Yale

New Haven, CT -- Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp. has eliminated 33,000 jobs in the United States since 1990 while adding 15,000 jobs abroad, notes George David, the corporation's president and chief executive officer, who will present the next Sheffield Fellowship address at Yale on Wednesday, April 24.

This migration of jobs overseas is part of a national trend that can't be stopped, so U.S. companies need to invest much more broadly in upgrading their employees' skills, says Mr. David, who will talk about the impact of technology on the American economy at 4:30 p.m. in Sudler auditorium at William L Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St.

Not enough workers are being encouraged to continue their educations while employed, and "this pattern no longer works for an economy with the rates of change we experience, where employment may be restructured easily several times during a career," he says. "When we experience restructuring, we need knowledge that is current, not the knowledge acquired two or three decades ago."

To meet this need, Mr. David recently unveiled UTC's aggressive plan to increase spending on employee education to $50 million a year, a plan that has been widely commended in the press and by President Bill Clinton. UTC now gives employees time off to attend classes, pays for tuition and books and will give employees who earn undergraduate or advanced degrees 50 shares of the company's stock, valued at more than $5,000. He hopes that 20 percent of employees eventually will take advantage of these education benefits.

"There are about 125 million Americans working today," Mr. David says. "As many as 30 million jobs will be at risk from industrial restructuring in coming years: 18 million administrative support jobs prone to automation, 10 million manufacturing jobs susceptible to foreign competition and 2 million white-collar jobs that medium and large companies like ours, under the pressure of competition, will learn to live without."

Prior to becoming president and chief operating officer of the corporation in 1992, Mr. David was an executive vice president of the corporation and president of Commercial/Industrial, where he was responsible for UTC's Carrier, Otis Elevator and UT Automotive units. He was elected to the additional position of chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp. in April 1994.

Mr. David was previously a senior vice president of UTC, responsible for Carrier and Otis, and simultaneously president and chief executive officer of Otis. He was elected to the CEO position at Otis in 1986 after serving as Otis' executive vice president and chief operating officer. He had been president of Otis' North American Operations since 1981 and general manager of its Latin American Operations from 1977 to 1981. He joined Otis in 1975.

He received his B.A. degree from Harvard and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Virginia. He also is a trustee of Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum. In addition, he is president of the board of trustees of the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and of the US-ASEAN Council, which facilitates trade and investment with Southeast Asian countries.

The Sheffield Fellowship was established recently to honor the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, which produced some of the greatest inventors and industrial leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries from its founding in 1852 until the mid-1940's, when its engineering courses were absorbed into the growing Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The fellowship brings to Yale leaders and innovators in business, industry, and government who are at the forefront of important developments in their fields. In addition to presenting a lecture, the Fellow tours laboratories and classrooms, and meets with faculty and students, providing an opportunity for informal discussions with members of various student organizations about career perspectives in engineering and related fields, said D. Allan Bromley, Dean of Engineering and sponsor of the Sheffield Fellowship.

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