YALE News Release
9/11/96
CONTACT: Cynthia L. Atwood #25
For Immediate Release: Sept. 11, 1996
Westinghouse Electric CEO to Deliver Sheffield Address at Yale
New Haven, CT -- Michael H. Jordan, chairman and chief executive officer
of Westinghouse Electric Corp., will present the next Sheffield Fellowship
address at Yale University on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Mr. Jordan, who earned
his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Yale in 1957, will speak
on "Technology and Politics" at 4:30 p.m. in Sudler Auditorium,
W. L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The public is invited.
The Sheffield Fellowship was established earlier this year to honor the
Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, which produced some of the greatest
inventors and industrial leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. Founded
in 1852, the School offered engineering degrees until the mid-1940's, when
engineering was absorbed into the growing Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences,
where it remains today.
Since assuming the leadership of Westinghouse in 1993, Mr. Jordan has led
one of the most comprehensive restructuring efforts ever undertaken within
a major U. S. corporation. He implemented a multi-faceted program to improve
Westinghouse's financial performance by reshaping its portfolio, reducing
debt and taking action to boost earnings.
With the acquisition of CBS in late 1995 and the establishment of a more
focused and efficient portfolio, Mr. Jordan has provided a firm foundation
for sustainable, long-term growth. In 1994, he was named to President Clinton's
Export Council, which advises the president on export performance and expansion,
and also provides a forum for resolving trade-related issues. He accompanied
the late U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and other government officials
on trade-building missions to countries throughout Asia and Latin America.
Before joining Westinghouse, Mr. Jordan was a partner with Clayton, Dubilier
and Rice Inc., a private investment firm based in New York City. Prior to
that, he spent 18 years with PepsiCo Inc., where he was director of planning
before moving on to senior management positions with Pepsi Cola International,
PepsiCo Foods International, the Frito Lay Division and at corporate headquarters
as chief financial officer and president.
In the early 1960's, after receiving a master's degree in chemical engineering
from Princeton University, he logged a four-year tour of duty with the U.S.
Navy on the staff of Admiral Hyman Rickover. His navy tenure included a
six-month assignment at the Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory
near Pittsburgh, where he earned certification as a nuclear engineer.
Mr. Jordan currently is chairman of the board of directors of the College
Fund/UNCF, and a board member of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. He serves on several
corporate boards, including Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc., Melville Corp., Dell
Computer Corp. and the Aetna Life and Casualty Co.
The Sheffield 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. Informal discussions
with members of various student organizations provide career perspectives
in engineering and related fields, said D. Allan Bromley, Dean of Engineering
and sponsor of the Fellowship.
Yale's Sheffield Scientific School acquired a world-wide reputation as one
of the foremost engineering education centers, awarding the first engineering
Ph.D. in 1861 to Josiah Willard Gibbs, who is considered the father of thermodynamics
and one of America's greatest scientists. His most notable contribution
was the discovery and interpretation of the relation of heat to the energy
of chemical actions.
Another famous graduate of the School was Lee De Forest, who has been called
the father of electronics. In 1906, he developed the audion, an amplified
vacuum tube that was the primary component of radios, televisions and computers
until they were replaced by transistors more than half a century later.
# # #
Yale Office of Public Affairs.