In the days when railroads snaked through the hills and valleys of Pittsburgh like the coal seams and rivers that once drove its industrial might, 71 men gathered in the offices of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to form what would become a model for industrial cooperation followed in other cities around the world.
As the Traffic Club of Pittsburgh prepares to celebrate its 108th anniversary, it will add Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and former, and first, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, to the long list of honored speakers at the club's annual dinner on Thursday. The heirs to the steel magnates and railroad barons will meet, dine and deal; and a long-standing tradition of the transportation industry shall be continued.
The annual dinners are a tradition reaching back to those early days of soot and steel, when powerful men of industry and commerce - - and they were all men, until the 1980s brought the first female members -- met to lay the groundwork for deals, identify problems and discuss the intersections of business and politics.
Originally intended as a forum for the railroad companies and the industries they served, the club has expanded over the past century to include river shipping, trucking companies and even rental car agencies, said Dan Stuthers, former president of the club and chairman of its public relations committee.
replica breitling watches"When I started here in 1962, every railroad in the country had an office (in Pittsburgh)," Stuthers said. "If the railroad wanted to get business, they'd go around to the offices of companies like U.S. Steel, Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Gulf Oil."
Now the Traffic Club has members from 33 states, Canada, Mexico and Europe, meeting "to encourage and protect trade and commerce by bringing into closer relations the shippers and producers of freight," he said.
The club has held annual dinners at locations around Pittsburgh nearly every year since 1903, with interruptions for both World Wars, the death of a railroad president and the national energy crisis of 1974, according to the club's historical documents.
A business opportunity
The club's annual dinners often have been more than an opportunity to socialize, said Larry Nowakowski, a retired business manager who worked for three railroads and served as club president in 1991 and 2000. He also served on the club committee which reviewed minutes, notes and invitations to compile a history of the organization.
The transportation company executives who strike deals with industrialists over rates, schedules and availability for moving freight get the opportunity to meet the industrial executives, Nowakowski said. Such meetings can lay the groundwork for future deals, give each company the chance to talk about problems, or just put faces to the names of bosses and clients. Sometimes, getting high-profile clients together with the bosses could be stressful, he said.
Clip on charms"In the '50s and '60s, the captains of industry in the Pittsburgh area could make or break a manager's career with the comments they'd make to the company executives," Nowakowski said. "You could think you were a great guy and fair, but if the customer didn't like you, they could say the wrong thing."
Other times, the interaction can smooth over contentions by allowing each company to explain their side of the bargain.
"Your client may say 'your rates are too high,' but then your company's executives can say 'our rates are this way so
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