Schuyler Wheeler
Schuyler Skaats Wheeler (May 17, 1860 – April 20, 1923) was an American electrical engineer and manufacturer who invented the electric fan, an electric elevator design, and the electric fire engine. He is associated with the early development of the electric motor industry, especially to do with training the blind in this industry for gainful employment. He helped develop and implement a code of ethics for electrical engineers and was associated with the electrical field in one way or another for over thirty years. Early life and genealogy Wheeler was born in New York City on May 17, 1860. He was the son of James Edwin and Ann Wood (Skaats) Wheeler. His father, a lawyer in New York city, was the son of Aaron Reed Wheeler, a land speculator of Waterloo, New York, who came originally from Blackstone, Massachusetts. Wheeler's mother was the daughter of David Schuyler Skaats, the president of the First National Bank of Waterloo, New York. Skaats was an eighth generation descendant of Dominie Gideon Skaats, who had settled in Albany, New York, prior to 1650. Mid life and career Wheeler was educated at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. Leaving college in 1881, upon the death of his father, he became assistant electrician of the Jablochkov Electric Lighting Company. Wheeler then joined the United States Electric Lighting Company in 1883 when Jablochkov went out of business with his electric company. He joined the engineering staff of Thomas A. Edison and was part of the project when the Pearl Street Station debuted the first incandescent light bulbs. He acted as general manager of the underground distribution system at Newburgh, New York. He was afterwards in charge to lay the Edison underground systems in other cities. Wheeler worked for Herzog Teleseme Company as electrician for a short time between 1884 and 1885. Then in 1886 he was part of developing and organizing the C and C Electric Motor Company with Charles G. Curtis and Francis B. Crocker. They were pioneer manufacturers of small electric motors. Wheeler became their main technician and plant manager. Wheeler then left the firm as did Crocker in 1888. They organized the electrical engineering firms of Crocker-Wheeler Motor Company of New York state and the Crocker-Wheeler Company of the state of New Jersey. Wheeler was president of both the firms from 1889. During his tenure with Crocker-Wheeler, he was particularly important in development of the electric motors and applying it to machine tool drives. He was for seven years (1888–1895) the electrical expert consultant specialist of the Board of Electrical Control of New York. In 1900, he purchased the library of Josiah Latimer Clark, which contained the largest collection of rare electrical works then known. He donated the Latimer Clark Library collection and it became the foundation of the library housed in New York's Engineering Societies' Building. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized him as one those who had given outstanding service to the Institute. In his IEEE presidential address in 1906,