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Bob Bishop Talks Growing Up at Pratt & Whitney

For decades, Pratt & Whitney was an important name in North Haven—not only for the money it generated for the town as the largest employer, but also for the memories of the many local people it employed. Bob Bishop had a long career at the North Haven site and will happily tell anyone the company meant a great deal to him, personally.

“Everything I have, I owe to Pratt,” says Bob, who recently donated binders of pictures and other Pratt & Whitney memorabilia to the town.

Bob was 20 when he first started work there in March of 1957. His first job was delivering mail throughout the plant. While he was initially hesitant to accept the position, his mother wisely told him to give it a chance.

“Back in those days, if you worked at Pratt, you had a good job. Wages were good, benefits were good,” he says.

Within two months of starting, Bob says he was promoted to paymaster’s assistant, and in 1961 he was promoted to paymaster. After a brief stint in the East Hartford office, he came back to North Haven for his “dream job” of staff assistant to the plant manager.

Working there didn’t just benefit him professionally.

“I met my wife at Pratt also; she worked in the employment office,” Bob says.

Finding out about his big promotion on his wedding anniversary, Bob surprised his wife, Barbara, at dinner.

“I gave her the anniversary card; I signed it the new staff assistant for North Haven. I didn’t say anything to her until she opened the card,” he says.

Bob describes Pratt as more than a workplace to many. Bob took up a volunteer role running the Aircraft Club. He says the club used to sponsor bowling leagues, take trips to New York or Boston for baseball games, and even had a store, all for employees.

He recalls Christmas parties the company ran that thousands of people attended, as well as four shows during the season, with about 800 kids (and their parents) coming to see the live entertainment.

“I spent a lot of time, but got a lot of satisfaction out of it,” Bob says about his involvement with the Aircraft Club, adding that he served on its board of directors for about 40 years.

He served on several other boards over the years, including the Special Olympics for United Technologies, the parent company of Pratt & Whitney. Bob says he was in charge of feeding all of the hungry volunteers on the weekend of the Special Olympics.

“It was a long day, but you felt good helping those special needs children,” Bob says.

His involvement with Pratt & Whitney also led him to be on an exploratory committee to see if North Haven should establish its own chamber of commerce or merge with that of another town. As a result, Bob served on the board of directors for the Quinnipiac Chamber of Commerce for a time, and still works some events now, such as the golf tournament.

Calling Pratt & Whitney “a little city,” Bob says the company had about 8,000 employees in its heyday and ran its own fire department with a doctor and nurses on staff, its own athletic fields, and its own credit union.

If someone worked at the site, chances are they’ve heard of Bob. A former collector of Department 56 village collectibles, Bob called someone who was selling some of the collectibles to purchase them. In talking to the woman who was selling them, Bob found out her parents also worked at Pratt & Whitney and knew him from the Aircraft Club.

“It just shows you what a small world it really is,” Bob says.

Pratt & Whitney meant a lot to Bob, but it also meant a lot to North Haven. Bob says many residents of North Haven were employed there, the company was paying about $4 million per year in taxes, and employees who worked there ate at local restaurants and used other services in town.

“It had to be a real blow when North Haven closed,” Bob says.

In fact, Bob was one of the last people working there when the plant was shutting down. He misses the interactions with people, but he still gets together for breakfast with other former Pratt & Whitney employees every so often.

The idea to donate pictures and other Pratt & Whitney items to the town came after he read an article in this paper about another former Pratt & Whitney employee, Bill Richards, who did the same thing.

The two met at the First Selectman’s Office in January when Bob brought his memorabilia in and enjoyed the opportunity to reminisce. Bob said he hadn’t seen Richards in years.

“I made a lot of good friends. If they didn’t work at Pratt or they didn’t bowl, I didn’t know anybody,” Bob says with a laugh.