The Brattleboro Daily Reformer

ENGINEERS TO SURVEY INDUSTRY
U. S. Naval Consulting Board Names Directors For Work.
SELECT FIVE VERMONT MEN
Frank O. Sinclair and George Howard Burrows of Burlington, James Hartness of Springfield, C. B. Hollis of Randolph and Byron Turner Burt of Rutland Chosen to Tabulate Industrial Preparedness.

Howard E. Coffin, chairman of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness of the Naval Consulting Board of the United States, today announced the names of the 250 state directors, formed into boards of five men each, who, under the committee's direction, are setting out to make a complete survey of American industry for the first time in the history of the United States government.

These state directors will be under the immediate guidance of W. S. Gifford, chief statistician of the American Telephone and Telegraph company who is acting as supervising director of the work. Under them will work the more than 30,000 highly educated members of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Chemical Society.

The state directors, who also become associate members of the naval consulting board, have just received appointment by the secretary of the navy.

In making public their names Mr. Coffin said:
"The names and standing of these men speak for themselves. They have been selected by their own professional associates with the only standard that of efficiency and integrity. They work without pay; indeed, the services of many of them could not be bought.

In my judgment they form a vast, flexible organization, the like of which has never been known in this or any other country of the world, and an organization, moreover, which from top to bottom is absolutely nonpolitical."

The directors from this state are as follows:

C. B. Hollis of Randolph, from the American Institute of Mining Engineers, is general superintendent of the Eastern Tale company; was born in 1860 in Massachusetts and educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a member of the Vermont Society of Engineers, the Greater Vermont Society and the Rochester board of trade.

Frank O. Sinclair of Burlington, from the American Society of Civil Engineers, is a consulting engineer and contractor for bridge, railway and hydro-electric work; was born in 1860 in Vermont and educated at the state university there; is a member of the New England Waterworks association and the Vermont Society of Engineers; has done ten years' work in railroad construction in the west and south; was for five years contracting engineer for the Pittsburgh Bridge company and is at present public service commissioner of Vermont, city engineer for Burlington and a member of the board of street commissioners.

James Hartness of Springfield, from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is president of the Jones & Lamson Machine company; was born in 1861 in the state of New York and educated at the public schools of Cleveland, O.; holds a degree from Yale and one from the University of Vermont; is a member of the Astronomical Association of America, the Western New England chamber of commerce and the Boston chamber of commerce; is past president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the inventor of the flat turret lathe and the turret telescope and holds more than 100 patents.

Byron Turner Burt of Rutland, from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, is vice president and general manager of the Rutland Light and Power company and general manager of the Western Vermont Power Light company and the Pittsford Power company; was born in 1861 in Michigan and educated in Saginaw, Mich., Washington and Brooklyn, and is a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and member of the Rutland Business Men's association.

In the early eighties he was employed for some time in the Edison Laboratories in New York city, later installing the first public electric light central station in Brooklyn and the first public arc light plant in Bridgeport, Conn., for three years thereafter doing similar work in Central America.

In 1888, as representative in Italy for the Thomson-Houston Electric company, he directed the work of laying underground high tension cables in Turin, afterward building in Bilbao, Spain, a large central station and underground system. In 1891 Mr. Burt represented the Thomson-Houston interests in Germany, two years later working on the electrical plans and estimates for the Chicago World's fair for the General Electric company, being afterward general manager of local properties for that corporation.

Mr. Burt has been general manager of the Chattanooga and Tennessee River Power company, with full charge of the installation of this 60,000 horsepower hydro electric plant while electric engineer for the company.

George Howard Burrows of Burlington, from the American Chemical Society, is professor of chemistry at the University of Vermont; was born in 1875 in Ohio and educated at Cornell and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has been a teacher and student of chemistry since graduation from college.