MANSFIELD — Charles Barnes was one of the tens of thousands of residents from Mansfield and surrounding communities who raised a family by working at Westinghouse.
Barnes, who was married with two daughters, was employed at Westinghouse from 1955 to 1967, traveling daily from Ashland. He began his career there as a draftsman and eventually became the senior design draftsman. At that time, he was very involved with sales and marketing.
He worked primarily in the laundry appliance division, providing detailed drawings for brochures on appliances, including parts specifications. He also provided training for sales staffers on the makeup of the washers and dryers. His drawings showed how the machines went together.
Barnes was obviously a productive employee, one of many loyal workers.
His daughter, Charla Clinage, who lives in Wooster, said her father loved working at Westinghouse. Like so many descendents of Westinghouse employees, she hopes the site of the former appliance manufacturer can still be redeveloped.
“Wouldn’t it be great?” Charla reflected. “I drive by there all of the time. I hope there is a way to bring some jobs back there.”
Charla Clinage is the mother of Patrick Clinage, executive assistant and sector coordinator for the Mansfield Richland Area Chamber of Commerce.
The plant was the community’s most dominant economic magnet for the region before the construction and opening of the Ontario GM plant in the 1950s. At its peak, the Westinghouse plant employed more than 8,000 workers.
One sign of the company’s creativity was the development of a family of robots. Its most famous, Elektro the Moto-Man, was on display at the 1939 World’s Fair.
When I first came to Mansfield and began work at the News Journal in the 1970s, Westinghouse was still one of the area’s top five industrial employers.
It also included a community-active union, Local 711 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. Both the company and union featured support for community projects. Both also offered large spaces for community events such as weddings, proms, reunions and the like.
I was a rookie News Journal reporter at that time. I did not have a dedicated coverage area. But, assignments I turned included stories on companies like Westinghouse and unions like IUE Local 711.
Westinghouse used its own ballroom for corporate events. Advertisements featuring prominent national entertainers and Westinghouse appliances were created and produced at the plant.
Given this history and perspective, it’s difficult to find a long-term family in Mansfield that has not had a significant historical relationship with Westinghouse.
That said, the community has had an expectation for some time that the vacant Westinghouse property would be ideal for redevelopment and job creation since the the company left in 1990.
The recent news about the Richland County Land Bank’s potential involvement with this site has surely aroused hopes and expectations.
There remain concerns about environmental clean-up, but there may be a new opportunity in this moment.
It may never be as large as it once was, but wouldn’t it be cool if that old factory site could again make a contribution to the city that counted on it and loved it so much?
(Tom Brennan was the former editor/publisher at the Mansfield News Journal, retiring in 2015 after 43 years with the local paper. A Buckeye Central and Ohio State graduate, he started his career at the News Journal as a reporter in 1972.)
