Earl W. Roberts
An Autobiography

 

The following is written in response to a request by my good friend, Mike Holt. The thrust of the information is focused on the many happenings in my life that might be helpful, and possibly in some cases inspirational to young people, particularly those progressing through careers in the electrical industry.

I was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1925. My schooling was the public school system all the way to college. In 1941, in my senior year in high school, it was customary for the entire senior class to be seated in the library and required to write a theme on one of the subjects listed by the faculty. No notes or references of any kind were allowed. The best judged theme would be awarded the Anthony Medal. Since I had been an aviation nut, and one of the subjects was "Wings," I wrote my theme, and lo and behold... I won!

I took the college course in high school and was determined to be the first person in our entire family to become a college graduate. One of my older swimming buddies had become a Brown University student, and I set my goal on Brown. I did well in my studies, applied to Brown, and was accepted with a 50 percent scholarship.

I had planned to take a BA course majoring in math in college but later decided on an engineering BS. During my freshman week, there was a notice on the bulletin board for students to apply for the NROTC Program. I had been a Boy Scout, I knew of the Sea Scouts, so I figured I should be involved in some campus activities & signed up to try out for NROTC.

In 1943, we were put on "active duty" as part of the Navy NROTC, V-12 Program. My marks were average and improved as the semesters passed. In my senior year, I was a Battalion Adjutant. I wanted to be a pilot in the worst way, but my eyes weren't good enough. After graduation and commissioning as an Ensign in 1945 at the age of 20, I applied for Naval Aviation, and was sent to the catapult and arresting gear school at Mustin Field, Philadelphia. After completing the course, I was assigned as Arresting Gear Officer and Assistant Flight Deck Officer of the USS Point Cruise, CVE-119. It was just being completed in Tacoma, Washington, and I became a “plank owner." 

Upon returning to Rhode Island, I started looking for a job & went to the Brown placement office to see who was looking for engineers, and ended up as a designer on the drawing board for the Narragansett Electric Company. I designed electrical substations, network transformer vaults, underground duct lines, manholes, etc.  After two years, I became a junior engineer, and later assistant engineer, and engineer. I was asked to recruit engineers and interviewed regularly at Brown and Harvard.

In 1949, I was married to my wife, Muriel, and we now have four daughters, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

During this period, I invented my first product... the Condulator, or conduit ventilator. Narragansett Electric Co. was part of the New England Electric System and I was asked to study the several ways that underground to overhead riser circuits were installed on the system and to make recommendations. I had a testing installation made of the various ways the risers were presently installed, plus new ideas, all with thermocouples. After weeks of data gathering, I concluded that it was most desirable to ventilate the risers to minimize the internal ambient temperature, and thus increase the ampacity of the cables.

I designed and made the first Condulator, a 4-in. size, and demonstrated its advantages. The company wanted to buy them so I approached the regular manufacturers of related products. I could not convince any manufacturer to make my Condulator. My utility company wanted to have them, and they paid for a US patent in my name. With their concurrence, I established Roberts Electrical Products Co., and made Condulators in my off-hours in 2-in., 3-in., and 4-in. sizes. Later 5-in. and 6-in. units were added. My company has been making Condulators for over 60 years, and they are still very popular in the Northeastern states.

In 1961, I was recruited by GE and became a product design engineer and later a subsection engineering manager for the Wiring Device Department in Providence, RI. In my last assignment there, I had responsibility for half the wiring device product line. I invented several products with the patents assigned to GE.

In 1970, I was recruited by the Daniel Woodhead Co. in Northbrook, IL to be their Director of Engineering and later VP of Engineering. I left in 1975 to return to GE in the Circuit Protective Devices Dept. in Plainville, CT. While there, committees related to Codes and Standards became practically my full-time workload. At one time, I counted 35 committees that I was a member of. I became a member representing NEMA, and later Chairman for 10 years of National Electrical Code Panel 2. I was a member of the NEC Correlating Committee, and the U.S. Technical Advisor on several international working groups of the IEC.

During my second hitch with GE, an occasion arose where my boss came into my office and said, "by the way, one of your new responsibilities is to write an article for every issue of the inspectors' magazine, the IAEI News."  The articles were to appear inside the front cover as "The Current Scene" and should include information of interest to electrical inspectors and related GE products. I wrote about 11 years of bi-monthly articles and developed a readership following. This experience later led to my writing my book Overcurrents and Undercurrents to the same readership.

In 1986, I retired from GE and Leviton Manufacturing Co. approached me to be a consultant. I accepted and served in that capacity for 12 years. I didn't feel that I wanted to go through another three-year NEC Code cycle, so we parted amicably.

I decided to write my thoughts about how electronics was reshaping the world of electrical safety. I didn't gear the book to be a textbook but to state my personal views, particularly on the relative merits of GFCIs versus grounding. Overcurrents and Undercurrents was published and paid for by me, with no hope of getting my money back. It has now been printed in four editions, and has more than paid its way.

I now do some independent consulting through my company REPTEC. I focus on trying to help fledging entrepreneurs get their new ideas accepted.

The latest edition of Overcurrents and Undercurrents is available for $20 from:
Earl W. Roberts
8 Brandon Ln.
Mystic, CT 06355

Reptec1@aol.com

Mike Holt Recommends that everyone should read this great book.