Bulriss doesn't pretend he can transform Great Lakes into a mini-GE.
So while GE, the world's largest manufacturing company, theoretically faced a strike--and there was a two-day national strike in January, the first at GE since 1969--the threat of a strike has probably never been as serious as it is today.
The move was an encouraging sign from the company--and for the economy as a whole--as GE slashed its dividend last year in an effort to raise cash.
And at a GE-sponsored conference, Grossman learned how to use direct mail to get women to come in and get their varicose veins zapped away.
While its revenues may have come in a bit light, GE remains a cash-generating juggernaut.
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But it remains unlikely that Washington would regard the failure of a corporate merger - even one involving a firm as large and well-known as GE - as serious enough to warrant souring international relations.
He has focused on building the Tokyo-based firm into a one-stop shop for leases, loans, commodity funds, insurance and other services -- not unlike a GE Capital or Citigroup on a small scale.
Among the new gizmos and gadgets showcased by GE were a slew of energy-efficient smart appliances, the GE Energy Smart LED, an advanced small wind turbine, and an Yves Behar-designed home electric vehicle charging dock called the GE WattStation.
Each LNG In A Box unit is fully equipped with a gas pre-treatment system, cold box assembly and boil off gas compressor as well as a GE's turboexpander compressor, high-speed reciprocating compressor, electric motor, driver and control system.
Mr Govindarajan, of the Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College, has advised General Electric on frugal innovation and co-written a path-breaking article on the subject with GE's boss, Jeff Immelt.
"The mode we're in right now is to understand what's happening, " said James Klapproth, a chief engineer at GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Inc.
The company identified 17 products that met its standard of providing "significant and measurable environmental performance advantages, " including a Lexan film that replaces conventional paint, Harmony water-conserving washing machines, the new fuel-efficient GEnx jet engine and GE's Evolution locomotive, a 208-ton, 4, 400hp workhorse that burns 3% less fuel and puts out 40% less pollution than its immediate predecessor.
The second thing is that GE has a patent -- and I believe in patents.
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Meanwhile Clean Energy has teamed up with truck stop operator Pilot-Flying J to build a border-to-border network (to include these GE Micro LNG plants) by the end of 2013.
In November, WinFlex, a wind-power company based in Kiryat Yam, Israel, received one of the most coveted prizes in the GE Ecomagination Challenge for developing a wind-turbine system that uses a light, flexible cloth sheets made out of composite materials as the rotor system for a wind turbine.
Even broadcast giant NBC , a unit of General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ), got into the act with ShopNBC , a home shopping channel 60% owned and operated by ValueVision Media (nasdaq: VVTV - news - people ).
Mr. Watson's invention looks to be part of a design competition, thus we're not exactly sure if GE or Kitchen-Aid has contacted him regarding a deal, but hopefully we'll soon see these things replacing those antiquated versions we're all forced to deal with now.
Below is a long-term dividend history chart for GE, which the report stressed as being of key importance.
He'd held several communications posts at GE, including a three-year stint writing speeches for Jack Welch in the late 1970s.
While 14, 000 GE workers staged a two-day preliminary strike in January, the company's negotiators reached a tentative deal on Sunday.
Below is a long-term dividend history chart for GE, which can be of good help in judging whether the most recent dividend with approx. 3.4% annualized yield is likely to continue.
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After GE bought NBC's parent RCA in 1986, late-night host David Letterman strode to the then-GE building to deliver a fruit basket to his new owners, complete with a camera crew that filmed him being escorted out of the building.
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So Depot convinced Rheem, a division of Japan's Paloma Industries and the biggest water-heater maker, to slap GE's name on a line of water heaters.
In 2002, GE innovated a portable, easy-to-use, ultra-low-cost ultrasound scanner that was able to address the unique market needs in China.
General Electric ( 32 , GE ) is a quintessential large-cap stock.
That's partly due to the development of the capital markets over the past decade in places like India and Latin America, making it easier for a company to make long-term investments in those areas, says Colleen Harkness, a managing director with GE's Energy Financial Services unit.
She worked as a lawyer at Wall Street firm Skadden, Arps and then as a venture capitalist at GE Equity in Hong Kong, leaving in 1999 to run a small responsible-investment private equity fund, Maven International, in the city.
Even mighty GE, which still boasted a top-notch credit rating at the time, resorted to extreme measures.
Cameco ( CCJ - news - people ), GE created a joint venture called Global Laser Enrichment.
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