Biographies
GEORGE ALVAH DOW
DOW, GEORGE ALVAH, Manufacturer,
Mr. Dow’s career is an example of a man who was fitted for a particular work, and who then proceeded to prove that fitness. When a mere boy his father planned that he should take hold of a great business, and he had him educated accordingly. He was a strict believer in discipline, and sent him to the school where stern routine ruled. Mathematics and the law he thought other essentials of a business man’s education, and in these he had the boy carefully trained.
Mr.
Dow received his early education in the public schools of
In 1895 Mr. Dow entered the Dow Steam Pump Works as an apprentice. The first six months he spent in the office to learn the details thereof, and then until 1899 worked in the shops to master the mechanical part of the business. When the company incorporated as the George E. Dow Pumping Engine Company he became the first vice president and began to feel that he was a necessary part of the concern, in which that business and family pride could have full swing. With this stimulus, plus his natural ambition, it is not surprising that he got results.
All
the sales were under his direction, and shortly before the fire the whole
business passed into his management.
Since then the trade has so expanded that he controls the largest works
of the kind west of
He is one of those manufacturers who is not only talking about the expansion of American business on the Pacific, but is actually bringing it to pass. In spite of all the handicaps under which American manufacturers labor when competing against Europe in the export trade, he is making goods for Asia and the other great lands that border on the Pacific waters.
Besides
this he has equipped the oil tankers of the Associated Oil Company and
similarly fitted the Beaver and the Bear, which were brought to this Coast by
the Pacific Mail Company. In 1907 he
closed a deal for the largest pumping contract that was ever let in the world
and which called for a pipe line for the Southern Pacific Company extending
from
Located
as he is on the
Mr. Dow is one of those men who seem to fit into his business as naturally as a rivet in the hole made for it. It looks as if all he had to do was to step into his father’s shoes and then let that family business pride work its will. But fitness for the job has been well backed by not only the ability to hold it, but also by the ambition to improve, if possible, on the pattern. His whole life is a story of a fixed purpose and of a grim determination to prepare himself for its fulfillment.
It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Dow has concentrated on his inherited business and has kept himself in close with the development of similar industries throughout the country. But beyond this he manages to give a considerable part of his time to the George E. Dow Estate Company, of which he is the president. All the property owned by the family has been consolidated and the expansion of its holdings is one of the exacting duties of the management.
Mr. Dow is also a director of the Olympic Salt Water Company, A member of the San Francisco Commercial Club, of the Crystal Gun Club of Newark, California, and a Mason. He is fond of outdoor sports.
Transcribed by Betty Vickroy.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page
866, International News
Service,
© 2007 Betty Vickroy.