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GABRIEL
OTTO WESSENAUER
1 906-1 990
WRITTEN BY ROLAND A. KAMPMEIER
SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY
G. O. WESSENAUER, manager of power for the Tennessee Valley
Authority for twenty-five years, ctied on September 30, 1990, at
the age of eighty-three.
He was born on October 21, 1906, at Sewickley, Pennsylvania,
the son of Gabriel and Meta Schietter Wessenauer. After study-
ing in the local public schools, he entered Carnegie Institute of
Technology, where he earned a B.S. in civil engineering. He had
a high scholastic standing and was elected to Tau Beta Pi.
G. O. Wessenauer was 'Jim" to his family circle and church
friends. He was 'Wess" to his fellow workers and business and
professional associates.
After a total of eight years with the West Virginia Power and
Transmission Company and the West Penn Power Company
1 I,
Wessjoined the Tennessee ValleyAuthority (TVA) as an assistant
hydraulic engineer in 1935. He was assistant to the manager of
power by 1941, was acting manager of power in 1943, and
became manager of power in 1944. He held that position, in
which he was in charge of the entire TVA power program, until
he retired in January 1970. He then continued to do some
consulting for TVA and others.
Wess was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
April 1968. He was a member of the Academy's Steering Com-
mittee on Power Plant Siting and of the NRC Commission of
Sociotechnical Systems' Committee on Processing and Utiliza-
tion of Fossil Fuels.
251
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252
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
He served on numerous national and international advisory
groups concerned with electric power supply, its reliability, its
environmental impacts, and research and development of better
ways to provide electric service. He served as chairman of the
Electric Research Council and as a director of the Atomic
Industrial Forum. He was a fellow of the American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE), an honorary life member of the Arneri-
can Public PowerAssociation, and a member of the Chattanooga
Engineers Club.
Wess received the Rockefeller Public Service Awarc! for outstand-
ing service to the nation as a federal employee. He was the author
of several papers, including one that won the ASCE Collingwood
Prize and three papers for World Power Conferences.
It would be impossible to record the illustrious history of the
TVA and its power program without referring to Wess time and
time again. Likewise, a memorial tribute for Wess would be far
from complete without at least a brief review of the story of TVA
power. It was he who steered the TVA power program for more
than twenty-five years far longer than any other person. During
his stewardship the TVA power system outstripped all others in
the nation in size and scope and set records for efficiency and low
cost.
The constant goal of Wess and the team he assembled and led
was to provide the people of the Tennessee Valley region with an
abundant supply of electric energy at the lowest practicable cost.
The system's generating capacity was expanded tenfold under
his direction. It evolve c3 from a predominantly hydroelectric
system to one that included some of the worId's largest and most
cost-effective coal-burning power plants, and nuclear plants
were being added. The major transmission voltage was increased
from 161 kilovolts to 500 kilovolts. The cost per kilowatt-hour of
electricity use, which TVA had already lowered dramatically, was
further reduced.
Wess saw clearly the importance of electric energy in the social
and economic development of the region. He workocl with the
municipal and cooperative systems that distribute TVA power to
encourage industrial development and to see that rural distribu-
tion lines were extencled to every farm and cabin. Fewer than
Representative terms from entire chapter:
power program
