12 | The Fisher Story
1932 During the Depression, some employees are
paid in stock rather than given a salary.
1934 First issue of The Governor newsletter is
distributed to employees and representatives.
Sales representatives are established in
Portland, Maine and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1933 A new catalog is published and business
immediately improves.
Sales representative is established in
St. Louis, Missouri.
A Woman’s Perspective
Sales meeting photo, 1935
O
ne of the most talented
“word processors” the
company has ever had is Francis
Witham Caputo.
Her career at the Fisher
Governor Company began in
1937, when the company had
fewer than 200 employees and
one location. She retired in 1978
from a company with several
thousand employees at 13
manufacturing, service and
subsidiary facilities in half a
dozen countries.
Francis shared her thoughts
about Fisher Controls at the
time of her retirement.
“When I came to Fisher on
January 25, 1937, young, naive
and frightened, things were very
different. Typewriters were
manual and my first transcription was done with a
machine that used cylindrical
records which had to be shaved
after each use. One time the
unfortunate in charge of this
operation mistakenly shaved a
number of cylinders that hadn’t
been transcribed—disaster!
“We wore conservative suits
or dresses, hose with seams up
the back, and when we dressed
up, we wore hats.
“Still fresh in my memory is
the girl, bolder than the rest of
us, who wore a red sweater to
work one day. The boss stopped
at her desk and asked her what
color the sweater was. We never
saw it again!
“We were meek, addressed