Bancroft Gherardi Jr. was an American electrical engineer.
Background
Gherardi was born on April 6, 1873 in San Francisco, the older of two sons of Bancroft and Anna Talbot (Rockwell) Gherardi. He was a grandson of Donato Gherardi, who came to the United States in the 1820's as a political refugee from Italy, taught Latin and Italian at the Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachussets, and married a sister of its director, the historian George Bancroft. The elder Bancroft Gherardi was a naval officer who served on the U. S. S. Niagara (which in 1858 laid the first Atlantic cable), participated in several Civil War engagements, and rose to the rank of rear admiral; his other son, Walter Rockwell Gherardi, also followed a naval career.
Education
Young Bancroft's schooling depended on where his father's naval duties took him. After receiving a B. S. degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1891, he proceeded to Cornell, where he was awarded the degrees of Mechanical Engineer in 1893 and Master of Mechanical Engineering in 1894.
Career
Jobs were scarce in 1895, and Gherardi fortuitously entered telephony when, through a family friend, Bradley A. Fiske, he found a job with the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, predecessor of the New York Telephone Company. From 1895 to 1900 he did important work improving the efficiency of telephone cables, developing telephone transmission theory, and establishing engineering requirements for aerial cables and poles. In 1900 he headed the New York Telephone Company's newly organized traffic engineering department; the following year he became chief engineer of the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company, and in 1906 assistant chief engineer of both the New York Telephone Company and the New York and New Jersey firm. Despite expanding executive responsibilities he kept his hand in technical problems. He was particularly active in designing new telephone buildings and arranging their equipment. In 1902 he and John J. Carty engineered the first commercial application of the loading coils invented by Michael Pupin. In 1907 Gherardi moved to the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, first as equipment engineer and then in 1909 as engineer of plants. For the next several years he worked closely with Carty, Frank B. Jewett, Edwin H. Colpitts, and other members of the strong research and engineering team which A. T. & T. assembled in New York City. Gherardi was associated with numerous important telephone innovations, including the design and construction of long-distance underground cables, the development of transcontinental telephony, and the improvement of signaling methods on toll lines. In 1918, when Carty went to France with the army, Gherardi rose to acting chief engineer of A. T. & T. ; the following year he became chief engineer and in 1920 vice-president, positions he held until retirement in 1938. A full appraisal of Gherardi's career during these two decades awaits an administrative history of A. T. & T. , but he was evidently an able administrator. While Gherardi was chief engineer, major technological innovations within the Bell system (A. T. & T. and its affiliates) generally originated in the engineering department of the Western Electric Company; in 1925 this department was reorganized as the Bell Telephone Laboratories under the direction of Carty and Jewett. A. T. & T. 's engineering department, under Gherardi, then promoted these new ideas and instruments in the Bell system and assisted Bell companies with engineering and operating problems. Gherardi proved particularly adept at balancing the often conflicting claims of standardization and innovation within the Bell system's semiautonomous units. Probably Gherardi's most critical decision during these years was his recommendation in 1919 that Bell adopt dial-operated machine switching. A. T. & T. chose the panel type developed by Western Electric over the Strowger step-by-step system manufactured by Automatic Electric, although the latter method was made compatible with Bell equipment and was used in some situations. By Gherardi's retirement in 1938, 52 percent of the phones in the Bell system were dial. During these years Gherardi also served on the boards of directors of several A. T. & T. -affiliated companies and on numerous engineering committees, published regular summaries of progress in telephone technology, and occasionally acted as a corporate spokesman. He died of a heart attack while vacationing in French River, Ontario, Canada, and was buried in Short Hills, New Jersey, his longtime residence.
Achievements
Religion
An active Episcopalian and member of numerous clubs, Gherardi served as a trustee of both Cornell and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
Politics
Gherardi was a Republican with economic and political views characteristic of corporate executives of his time.
Membership
President of the American Standards Association (1931-1932), President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (1927-1928), member of the National Academy of Sciences (1933)
Personality
Gherardi possessed personal qualities helpful to an executive in a large and complex organization: a profound sense of order, an almost overpowering conscientiousness, decisiveness, an unerring ability to locate weak spots in proposals and men, and an intolerance of those who lacked clear thinking or a readiness to reach prompt decisions.
Connections
Gherardi married Mary Hornblower Butler, daughter of a Paterson, N. J. , manufacturer, on June 15, 1898. The couple were childless but were close to the family of his brother Walter.
The IEEE Edison Medal is presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 'for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts'.
The IEEE Edison Medal is presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 'for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts'.