The General Electric Company Edison Electric Light Company

The General Electric company, or GE, had it’s beginnings in 1878, when Thomas Edison created his Edison Electric Light Company. Edison created his first publically available electric lamp, and changed the industry forever. By 1890, another company, the Thomson-Houston Company, had started, and created competition with Edison’s company. Being the only two large companies offering electric light, Edison Electric Light and Thomson-Houston had a lot of tension between them. But neither of them could fully rely on themselves, and so together they created The General Electric company. Edison brought many of his ideas and inventions to GE, and so GE always had many divisions. Among which, electric light, medical equipment and power transmission†¦show more content†¦Now, GE has continued on and owns over 67,000 patents. The company has blasted off from the beginning, and that can only happen with a strong staff to support the company from the inside out. Currently, GE has it’s headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. Jeff Immelt is the current CEO, and has held that position since 2001. Immelt has been involved in the company much longer than that, though. He’s held positions in GE’s Plastics, Appliances,and Healthcare divisions since 1982. However, his power has a negative side to go along with the positive. GE’s stock has gone down nearly 60% since 2001, when Immelt become the CEO. This dramatic change can be blamed on fluctuations in the economy, but that’s not where it stops. General Electric has lost 19,000 employees, and also closed 31 plants in America. Immelt has been criticized for all of this, and even especially so because he was the chairman on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The company has 18 other corporate executives, t o head fields like Financial Planning, Investor Communications, and Global Research. Their 19 business executives head the different departments of GE: Lighting, Transportation, Asset Management, Power and Water, Oil and Gas, International Capital, Retail Finance, Aviation, Energy Management, GE:Africa, GE:Greater China, GE:America, Healthcare, Home Business Solutions, and Real Estate and Capital