NAME(S) ON TILE:                 MINTON M. ANDERSON, ALCOA

FLORENCE J. ANDERSON

DONOR NAME(S):                   DR. AND MRS. JAMES GILMORE

Minnesotans, Andy and Florence, born at the turn of the Century, came to Pittsburgh in 1930.  Andy, a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, was hired from the staff of the University by Aluminum Company of America to head up the Personnel Department for the Company; and Florence, mother of two girls, active in the church, devoted to gardening and the art of flower arranging, brought to Pittsburgh the girls, her faith, her skills at Horticulture, but most important her support for Andy through the very trying years of World War II.

Andy’s career with “ALCOA” was to have a profound effect not only on the company but on society as a whole.  You could not see it coming through the dreary industrial years of the thirties, but as the country became engulfed in World War II and the industrial might of the United States was enlarged and harnessed to win that war, many of what were then called employee “benefits” that undergird our present society were born.  The gearing up of existing plants to run round the clock, the demand for even more plants, more machines, more research, more everything, required people.  New and different people, the men had gone to war.  How do you get the new and different people to work.  Sure the patriotism was there, but they had to be trained and trained almost overnight.  They had to be paid in new and imaginative ways.  The United States government said “no” to salary increases - unpatriotic - too costly - for the duration of the war.

“Benefits” were born.  Health insurance - dental insurance - eye care - life insurance - pensions in many forms - training programs of all kinds – crafts - trades - education at all

levels.

What was Andy’s part in all this - Andy spoke for the very vital aluminum industry along with others from steel autos, air craft, mining - the whole industrial might of the country.  It was Andy and many men like him that defined the origin of “benefits,” the common place, the almost taken for granted part of the economy today.