Seymour Gussack, who received a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stevens in 1944, spoke to Professor Andrew Long's Entrepreneurial Studies class on Monday, April 27. In 1955, Gussack founded General Bearing Company, Inc., which is now an internationally recognized leader in bearing manufacturing. The company sources, assembles and distributes a variety of bearing components and bearing products, which are used in automobiles, railroad cars, office equipment, machinery and appliances.

Gussack first gained factory experience in high school, when he worked in his father's hardware manufacturing facility. He received his degree from Stevens while he was serving in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he worked in a zipper factory and later became a manager of Grant Pulley and Hardware, his father's hardware company. Gussack's interest in the manufacture of bearings was sparked when a dispute over the delivery of bearings for sliding doors arose between his company and a supplier.

Gussack speculated that the use of nylon in bearings could drastically enhance their performance. At the age of thirty, Gussack, a husband and father of five, decided to take a risk and invest $2,500 into the creation of General Bearing Company, Inc. His brother, Milton, matched this investment. They purchased "a few beat-up machines" for their first factory in Mineola, New York. Gussack is proud to say that they "did not accept book standards for machine performance," and that they ran the machines faster and more efficiently than other companies did. He believes this is the reason they were so successful, since it enabled them to produce bearings at a much lower cost.

Within six months, the Chrysler Corporation became General Bearing's first significant customer. When Gussack informed a Chrysler representative that he could supply steering-post bearings for 40 cents each (one third of the price they were paying at the time), the representative immediately made a deal. These bearings were used in Chrysler automobiles for twenty years.

When asked about his business background, Gussack replied that he "had no selling experience." His strategy has always been to "figure out what the customer needs by listening to them." When he first founded General Bearing, Gussack decided to hire engineering students who wanted to be salesmen. He wanted the production employees themselves to sell the bearings to customers because he believes that "if you don't know your product, you can't sell it."

The company continued to grow and prosper for several decades. Gussack acquired the equipment, bearing designs and manufacturing techniques of the Hyatt Bearing Division from General Motors in 1987. In addition to the company's rapid success in the United States, General Bearing began to develop profitable relationships with foreign companies much earlier than other American hardware companies did. They provided Japanese companies with bearings and bearing components in the late 1960s. Within the next twenty years, they contributed to the establishment of bearing companies in both Poland and China. The opening of the first Shanghai General Bearing Company, Ltd. plant in October 1989 was a landmark event in Chinese economic history, and was attended by top Chinese government leaders and world business figures.

After speaking, Gussack was presented with a Stevens baseball cap and a ball autographed by the 2009 Varsity baseball team: a tribute to when he played on the team as a student. Greatly moved by the presentation, Gussack described the tremendous impact that the Institute has had on his life: "From my personal experience, I have discovered that the education you receive from Stevens provides you with a broader, deeper and more practical understanding of the working world than even the most prestigious schools."

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