Los Angeles County
Biographies
RUSSELL
HENRY BALLARD
The late Russell Henry Ballard of Los Angeles, president of the Southern California Edison Company, Ltd., was a nationally honored utility executive who long figured prominently in financial and cultural activities of Southern California. He was born at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, July 26, 1875, son of Walter John and Harriet A. (Morphy) Ballard, in company with whom he crossed the border to the United States in 1883, when a lad of eight years. His education was acquired in the public grade and high schools. His first work in the electrical industry was that of office boy for the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Chicago, Illinois, the service of which he entered in 1890. This concern later became the General Electric Company, and Mr. Ballard afterward was employed in the credit department of its general offices at Schenectady, New York. He soon was advanced to the managership of the company’s southern office credits and collections, at Atlanta, Georgia, and also was in charge of the same department in other branch offices.
In 1897, when a young man of twenty-two years, Mr. Ballard came to Los Angeles and began work as a bookkeeper for the West Side Lighting Company, the original organization from which sprung the present Southern California Edison Company. He remained continuously in its service to the time of his death, except during the period from 1900 to 1904, during which he was office manager for the Butte Electric and Power Company at Butte, Montana. Returning to the company in 1904, he became assistant secretary of the Edison Electric company, the immediate predecessor of the Southern California Edison Company. Later he was promoted to the position of secretary and assistant general manager, then becoming vice president. In 1920 he assumed the position of vice president and general manager and in 1924 was made executive vice president and general manager. He was elected president of the company in 1928, when John Barnes Miller relinquished the office of president to become chairman of the board of directors.
We quote from a review of the career of Russell H. Ballard which appeared in a Los Angeles newspaper under date of August 25, 1932: “When Mr. Ballard came to Los Angeles, the West Side Lighting Company, the city’s first steam-electric generating station, was a year old, and into the young concern he gave all of his enthusiasm and youthful vigor. From the post of bookkeeper, Mr. Ballard went to the office of auditor and his advance from then on was steady. The list of positions he held during the formative years of the present company included virtually all important management duties. . . .He participated with the late John Barnes Miller in the negotiations carried on over a period of years that resulted in the amalgamation of many Southern California electric power companies into the present Southern California Edison Company, and was actively engaged in the direction of the company’s long-time construction program that included the development of hydro-electric power sources in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the development of the west’s largest steam-electric generating station, on Terminal Island at Long Beach. . . . As an executive of the Edison Company, Mr. Ballard had an intimate part in its financial and physical development. He aided it to become one of the strongest financial institutions of the west and in broadening its scope of service to include an area of fifty-five thousand square miles of central and southern California territory. The Edison Company was Mr. Ballard’s life work.”
In recognition of his services to the electrical industry, for the whole industry benefited (sic) from Mr. Ballard’s organizing and operating genius, he was called to serve as president of the National Electric Light Association and the Pacific Coast Electrical Association, and was elected to membership in the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. He was the recipient of many other honors from other organizations, and was the first to receive the John B. Miller medal for distinguished service to his own company.
Further recognition of Mr. Ballard’s qualities of community leadership was given in June, 1932, when he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Southern California. In awarding him the honorary degree, President Rufus B. Von Kleinschmid of the university characterized Mr. Ballard as a champion of all good causes in this and other communities and a stalwart citizen of rare services. Evangeline Booth declared that Mr. Ballard was one of the best friends of the Salvation Army.
One of Mr. Ballard’s outstanding contributions to the cultural and scientific growth of Southern California was his interest in the development of the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena. He was president of the California Institute Association, an organization of Southern California business and civic leaders who are furthering the scope of the institute’s activities. Mr. Ballard was also a worker in other civic enterprises, including the Community Chest, the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Grand Opera Association.
The principles and platform of the republican party found a stanch champion in Mr. Ballard. In fraternal circles he was known as a Knight Templar Mason who attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and crossed the sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was highly esteemed among his fellow members of the California, Sunset, University, Jonathan and Wilshire Clubs of Los Angeles. During the World war he was prominently identified with the various Liberty Loan drives. He took a leading part in all constructive organization work having for its object the growth and betterment of the city of Los Angeles, and particularly the development of the back country which is tributary to the metropolis of the southwest. In the death of Russell H. Ballard, which occurred August 24, 1932, when he was fifty-seven years of age, Southern California sustained the loss of one of her most valued and distinguished citizens.
On the 9th of February, 1901, Mr. Ballard married Miss May Spurgeon, of Santa Ana, California, and to them was born a daughter, Harriet Russell. For his second wife Mr Ballard chose Gladys Marion Morphy, who survives her husband and resides at 520 South Irving boulevard in Los Angeles.
Transcribed 1-9-13
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
577-580, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2013 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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