LENNOX — Back in the heyday of General Electric Co., Betty Pulelli could always throw a fun party with her co-workers.
Mr. Preli, now 92, worked in the finance department of GE in Pittsfield until retiring in 1986. Along the way, she made a lifelong friend in Ross “Raggedy” Payne. At that time, he was called that because of his overgrown hairstyle. Vietnam Tour — Glenn “Turkey” Grogan got his nickname because of his long hair. And Jerry “Maren” Maren was never given a nickname, but he is affectionately referred to as “Clown.”
This time, the three men called her “Apple,” or “Apple Betty.” Thanks in part to Preli’s efforts to bring people together during off-duty hours, the bond between them all remained intact even as the company they worked for downsized. Her parties gave her core group an opportunity to get intimate.
Together, the four worked together for nearly 15 years, Payne said. It had been decades since everyone had been in the same room.
Former GE colleagues and friends (from left, Jerry Mullen, Glenn Grogan, Ross Payne, and from right, Betty Pulelli) gather at Pulelli’s home in Lenox on Wednesday. It was the first time they were together in over 30 years.
Stephanie Zorshan — Berkshire Eagle
However, Preli reprized her role and organized a party for them to reminisce about the old days. At a “mini-reunion” held Wednesday at her home in Lenox, GE veterans picked up where they left off.
Payne said co-workers would work for 10 or 12 hours, depending on the day, and then get together just to enjoy each other’s company. He said that on the first Monday of every August, everyone carries inventory through one of GE’s factories, then goes to a bar or restaurant for a drink and “remembers the horrors of that day.” I remembered.
“That’s one of the reasons we became a family,” Payne said.
Put a price tag on GE transformers
Mr. Preli and his colleagues worked as cost accountants for General Electric Company from the late 1960s to the 1980s. As such, their duties included assigning prices for the company’s famous transformers, which can exceed $1 million, Payne said.
General Electric Building 14, also known as the “Tank Shop,” has now been demolished. Former workers are remembering what it meant to Pittsfield and their families while there is still something left.
Payne said the process began with a purchase order and an estimate of the parts, materials and labor needed to fill the order. Cost accountants thoroughly reviewed the costs of all components within the transformer to determine the final price of the unit before shipping.
At the time, Pleri was the “go-to guy” for everyone in the finance bullpen, including Mullen, who said accounting was not easy with the equipment available at the time. It was “before the calculator, before the computer,” he says.
“So we had paper and pencils, and we had this huge machine on our desk called ‘Frieden,'” Mullen said. “If you wanted to do something, you had to type like a big typewriter.”
Betty Preli, 92, hosted a reunion Wednesday at her Lenox home for friends and former GE Finance colleagues, reuniting with three of her closest friends for the first time in more than 30 years.
Stephanie Zorshan — Berkshire Eagle
Mullen was referring to the Frieden mechanical calculator, the predecessor to the electronic calculators used today. This is somewhat similar to a cash register interface. Frieden wasn’t easy to operate, he said, but it was an improvement over another mechanical calculator that was once in rotation at the company, the Comptometer.
Whenever accountants had questions about operating machines (which often require a learning curve) or reviewing documents, Puleri was there to lend a hand.
“Working with Betty was a great experience,” Mullen said. “She really was my mentor.”
Despite his role as a go-to resource for cost accountants, Purelli was not a manager or even a boss. Although her leadership role was informal, to this day her colleagues remember her as a leader in the department.
“She was the leader of our group,” Payne said.
family found
For almost everyone who attended the reunion, it wasn’t a straight path into finance.
Grogan began working on the factory floor and spent time in the company’s transformer and plastics divisions immediately after graduating from high school. He attended classes at Berkshire Community College and North Adams State University before moving into the financial industry. Ms. Preli similarly worked as a nurse for several months before taking a job at GE.
It was Payne’s first job after returning from a year in the Vietnam War. Returning to the United States afterward was miserable, he said. I had to travel across the continent from Seattle to my hometown of Pittsfield.
He was reportedly spat at twice. I also remember a woman walking so far in her stroller that she was rubbing against the window as she passed.
Mr. Payne’s colleagues at GE were among the first to warmly welcome him back, he said.
“When I came back, things were very different than they were back then,” Payne said. “You kind of fell into a hole. Since you joined this group, the atmosphere has warmed up.”
While the others remain in the Berkshires, Mr. Payne moved to East Texas for another job at GE. Mr. Pene and Mr. Preli still speak by phone every month, he said.
At Wednesday afternoon’s reunion, there wasn’t much talk about the “tank shop” or the building being demolished on the former site of GE in Pittsfield. Instead, the afternoon was filled with fond memories of long-gone office chats and toasts to people who were more than just colleagues.
There was no anniversary or special reason why Mr. Pureri called the reunion, she said. It’s been too long since we all met.
“They really are family to me,” Preli said. “They’re just that. We’ve fused together at ‘The GE.'”
