Readers not stumped by workplace photo
The phrase “mobile communications” has a much different meaning today than it did 34 years ago, when this Mystery Photo was taken. Today, it means cellular telephones. Back then, it meant walkie-talkies and police and CB radios. And those were the things manufactured at the RCA plant in Meadow Lands.
“At one time, close to 2,000 people worked at the plant,” said George Trout, who was manufacturing manager in January 1982, when the photo was taken. “I worked there for 24 years, and I was there when they put the padlocks on the place.”
All the people in the photo worked under Trout and were employees of Tac-Tec, which took over RCA’s mobile services division about a year earlier. The plant closed in 1984, the mobile division moving its manufacturing to San Diego, Calif., and RCA’s broadcast division moving back to New Jersey.
We received dozens of phone calls and emails from former employees of the plant, their friends and relatives. One of those calls came from Maria McIntire, shown at work in the foreground.
“I was putting terminals on cables, but as a rule, I didn’t work in that area,” McIntire said. “I did a lot of things at the plant. I was everywhere.”
Watching her work in the picture are Bessie Brown, who lives in Muse and was a group leader; Myra Hughes, a worker who lives in Washington and was recognized by some of her classmates from Trinity High School Class of 1973; Ralph Dagnana, a Hickory resident who was a supervisor; Dolores “Duna” Accetturo, a group leader who died in 2002; and Martin Smith, a product control supervisor who was known to everyone as “Smitty.”
Brown worked for RCA and Tac-Tec for 33 years, from the time the plant was in Canonsburg until its Meadow Lands plant closed.
“It was a very good place to work,” Brown said. “It was like a family. Everybody was so friendly and looked out for one another.”
After the closure, Brown worked for an employment agency and then for Asbury Heights retirement center for 10 years until she retired.
Dagnana began work for RCA in 1951. “My wife worked there, too. When it closed, they transferred me to New Jersey, to the broadcast division.” He retired in 1990 and returned to Hickory.
Dagnana agreed RCA was a great place to work. “It really wasn’t that big,” he said. “Everybody knew each other.”
“That was a real blow to the local economy when that plant closed,” McIntire said.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.