Betty Lou Bailey

Betty Lou Bailey, SWE Pioneer, Fellow, and Life Member, was active in the Philadelphia Section from May 1961 through September 1969 when she worked at the General Electric Missile and Space Division in King of Prussia, PA. For much of this time she served on the Executive Committee in various positions that included Section President and Secretary. Betty Lou was committed to career guidance activities and often spoke with high school students, their parents, teachers, and counselors about what engineers do, their education and training, salaries, and the satisfaction you get from a job well done. She was elected to the SWE College of Fellows in 1985.

Betty Lou worked for the General Electric Company throughout her professional career. She joined GE on a rotating-assignment program for new engineers that took her to Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, and Philadelphia. When she was on assignment at GE Switchgear in Philadelphia, she met Doris McNulty who introduced her to SWE and she promptly joined up in 1951. Though Betty Lou originally planned to focus her engineering talents on household appliances, her experience as a test engineer led her to realize that she liked turbines more than refrigerators. After completing the new-engineer program, she went to the GE Large Jet Engine Department in Evandale, Ohio and then to the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady before transferring to the Spacecraft Department in King of Prussia in 1961, where she worked on the Nimbus weather satellite and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. In 1969 she transferred to the GE Gas Turbine Department in Schenectady and worked in NY until she retired in 1994 after 44 years with the company. She was a registered Professional Engineer in Ohio and New York and holds a patent for a variable exhaust nozzle.

Betty Lou attended most of the National Conferences held from the time she joined SWE until 2007, when she passed away about a month after participating in meetings at that event. She participated in various national committees. For decades she actively sought out students to discuss what it is like to work for a large company and to introduce them to GE. She enjoyed needlework and often would work on a project during some especially long meetings, such as some Council of Section Representatives sessions where she was part of the “Peanut Gallery” (i.e., the non-voting members) who observe and are often called upon to provide insight or clarification of various issues under discussion.

Betty Lou Bailey was born and raised in Chicago, IL. She graduated with University Honors from the University of Illinois in 1950 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and from the Penn State Graduate Center in King of Prussia with a M. Eng. in Engineering Science in 1967. She was the first woman member of the Engineering Society of Cincinnati and served as chair of its Guidance Committee. She also served on national committees for the National Society of Professional Engineers, the Engineers Joint Council, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Betty Lou also was an active environmentalist, a traveler, an avid canoeist, cyclist and a hiker; she walked the entire Appalachian Trail by doing it in segments over a few years. She was a member of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) and in 2004 she received their highest award for her work in monitoring hydropower applications to the Federal Regulatory Commission. Her dam-licensing work helped ensure that sufficient water was released downstream to support river life and water recreation. Betty Lou was 78 years old when she died suddenly on November 13, 2007 during an ADK cycling trip.

Sources:
SWE Archives - Resume
SWE Archives - Speech at Pittsburgh Personnel Conference. 14 January 1954
Ovedoff, Debora. "Mum's the Word -- Her Job's a Secret." THE EVENING BULLETIN. 21 November 1968.
Adirondack Mountain Club Statement, http://www.adk.org/issues/BettyLouBailey.aspx
Personal memories - Barbara C. Faust