Education
After attending the Newark schools, the son entered Columbia University, where he graduated in 1889 from the School of Mines.
After attending the Newark schools, the son entered Columbia University, where he graduated in 1889 from the School of Mines.
Answering an advertisement posted on the Columbia bulletin board, he obtained employment with the Link-Belt Engineering Company as a draftsman at a salary of fifteen dollars a week. He soon became, successively, chief draftsman, chief engineer, general superintendent, and general manager.
In 1906 when several companies were combined under the name Link-Belt Company he became its president, with headquarters at Chicago. The company was engaged in manufacturing and engineering in the field of conveying, elevating, and transmission machinery. By 1917 when America entered the First World War, Piez had a national reputation as an engineer and organizer. The need for a man of his qualifications on the United States Shipping Board led its chairman, Edward N. Hurley, also of Chicago, to appoint Piez chairman of a committee of engineers to report on the condition of the wood shipyards.
He was selected vice-president of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, of which Hurley was president. On December 15 he became general manager, and a year later director general, in which office he remained until his retirement, April 30, 1919. He had control of six hundred thousand employees and directed the expenditure of three billion dollars.
Resuming his work as president of the Link-Belt Company in 1919, he continued in that capacity until 1924, when he became chairman of the board of directors, an office that he held until February 1932, when he retired on account of ill health.
He was chairman of the Illinois Employers' Liability Commission, 1910, and for a time was a member of the State Arbitration Board. He was president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, 1911-13, 1924-25; a member of the executive committee of the Museum of Science and Industry founded by Julius Rosenwald, and president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1929-30.
In May 1933 he moved to Washington, District of Columbia, and died there at the Garfield Hospital of pneumonia.
He said that, if he had his life to live over again, he would begin with a training in mechanical engineering, because it develops the ability to dig up and weigh facts before reaching a conclusion, the basis of sound judgment in every walk of life.
He had unusual managerial ability.
Quotes from others about the person
Piez's career, it has been said by Mechanical Engineering in 1933, "illustrates in a spectacular fashion how the technical graduate with capacity for executive responsibilities and a flair for the financial and non-engineering aspects of industrial life passes into a position of leadership in business following a helpful and necessary experience in the rigid discipline of engineering design and production".
Charles M. Schwab, his predecessor as director general, said to him: "I regard you, above all other men, as having contributed more to the work done in the Fleet Corporation than any one else" .
He was twice married: first, January 16, 1896, to Laura Olivia Flora, of Bangor, from whom he was divorced; second, in 1922, to Mrs. Laura (Sadler) Cocke, of Laurel. He left no issue.