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William R. Gould papers, 1931-2005

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Gould, William R., 1919-2006
Title
William R. Gould papers
Dates
1931-2005 (inclusive)
Quantity
77.75 linear feet, (159 boxes)
Collection Number
MS 0619
Summary
The William R. Gould papers (1931-2005) are comprised mainly of personal materials, office correspondence from Gould's lifetime career at Southern California Edison (SCE), speeches, and materials from the boards of directors of both SCE and a variety of community and business organizations which Gould served upon. William R. Gould (b. 1919) started out as an engineer and worked his way up to chief executive officer of Southern California Edison, one of the nation's largest electric utilities. The collection is an excellent source of material on energy, energy policy, utility management, and nuclear reactor development in Southern California, the Southwest, and the United States in general.
Repository
University of Utah Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
295 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City, UT
84112-0860

Telephone: 8015818863
special@library.utah.edu
Access Restrictions

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

William R. Gould was born in Provo, Utah, October 31, 1919. He descended from Welsh and German ancestors who immigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth-century. After arriving in Utah, the Gould family settled in Provo, Utah, where Gould spent much of his early life. Even though his family existed in humble circumstances and lived, as he put it, "on the wrong side of University Avenue," his gifted intellect, perseverance, and hard work enabled him to gain acceptance to the University of Utah where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1942.

During his college years he met and courted Erlyn Arvilla. After two and one-half years they were married on March 20, 1942. They had four children--Erlyn Sharon L. Madsen; William R. Gould, Jr.; Gilbert J. Gould; and Wayne R. Gould--and twenty-five grandchildren. Shortly before Mrs. Gould's death on June 2, 1992, the Goulds celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. In the words of William Gould, they shared the "finest marriage and the most glorious romance." Mutually supportive and virtually inseparable, the Goulds combined their talents, attention, and interest in professional, religious, business, and community service. Gould attributed much of his success to the warm support, encouragement, and advice of his wife.

Erlyn Arvilla was born February 3, 1919, in Garfield, Utah. She attended the University of Utah and received a degree in business in 1942. However, her primary interest was in art. She was an accomplished artist and her keen eye for art enabled her to acquire, during world travels with her husband, an extensive collection of art objects. Erlyn Gould had an engaging personality-intelligent, vibrant, and gracious.

After Gould's graduation from the University of Utah in 1942, he obtained a graduate degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Southern California Edison, he served in the United States Navy for six years as an engineering officer. He was a registered professional engineer in the State of California and Utah.

Gould joined Southern California Edison in 1948 as a mechanical engineer. He was appointed manager of the Engineering Department in 1962, and was elected vice president in 1963. In 1976 Gould became senior vice president, director in 1971, executive vice president in 1973, president in 1978, and chairman and chief executive officer in 1980. When he retired in 1984, Gould was designated chairman of the Board Emeritus and consultant to the management of Southern California Edison.

Gould's innovative leadership at Southern California Edison had a tremendous national impact, on the electric power industry. In 1980 Gould committed SCE to an endeavor he characterized as an excursion into "high adventure," by announcing that SCE would aggressively research and use alternative forms of energy. This decision was viewed by many of his industry colleagues as undesirable and even detrimental. The action took great courage, and illustrated his concern for and commitment to the welfare of the community and the quality of the environment. Under the leadership of Gould, Southern California Edison was the first corporate entity selected to receive the internationally recognized John and Alice Tyler Prize for the Protection of the Environment.

Gould served as a director of numerous businesses and associations such as the Atomic Industrial Forum; Beckman Instruments, Inc.; Edison Electric Institute; Electric Power Research Institute; Eyring Research Institute; Kaiser Steel Corporation; the Aerospace Corporation; Mono Power Company; Joy Technologies, Inc.; Nationals Energy Foundation; and the Science Applications International Corporation.

In spite of the demands as SCE's chief executive officer and his other business commitments, Gould found time to serve the community as well. Among his civic commitments he was a member of the board of trustees of the Huntington Library; a board member of the trustees of California Institute of Technology; a member of the National Advisory Board, University of Utah; and a director for the Los Angeles Opera Theater, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

For his innovative and technological contributions to science, Gould was a recipient of numerous honors and awards including Engineer of the Year by the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering (1970); election to the National Academy of Engineering (1973); Power-Life Award, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1978); George Westinghouse Gold Medal, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1979); National Energy Foundation Achievement Award (1981); University of Utah Distinguished Alumni Award (1981); Electric Industry Man of the Year named by Electric Light and Power Magazine (1983); Oliver Townsend Medal of the Atomic Industrial Forum (1983); Centennial Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (1984); California Industrialist of the Year (1984); and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Award of Recognition (1993).

In recognition of Gould's exceptional career performance as manager and executive for Southern California Edison, in 1992, the company, established in Gould's honor the William R. Gould Award for Engineering and Operational Excellence to be given each year to two outstanding employees of the company.

Through a generous endowment the Goulds, in 1991, established a prominent lectureship entitled The William R. and Erlyn J. Gould Distinguished Lecture on Technology and the Quality of Life in the Marriott Library at the University of Utah. The annual lecture focuses on technical and environmental issues, and is presented by a noted scientist or engineer. In 1992 Mr. Gould gave the inaugural address entitled "The Sons of Martha: Reshaping the Electric Industry."

Gould was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served in several ecclesiastical offices including bishop, stake president, and regional representative for the central church leadership. His religious upbringing motivated him toward the pursuit of excellence, knowledge, and service which is well documented in his life and career. In summary, William R. Gould--business executive, entrepreneur, technologist--is viewed as one of the most influential and innovative figures in the history of the electric power industry.

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Content Description

The William R. Gould papers (1931-1997) are comprised mainly of personal materials, office correspondence from Gould's lifetime career at Southern California Edison (SCE), speeches, and materials from the boards of directors of both SCE and a variety of community and business organizations which Gould served upon. The collection is an excellent source of material on energy, energy policy, utility management, and nuclear reactor development in Southern California, the Southwest, and the United States in general.

The collection is divided into seven sections: Personal Materials; Travel Files; Speech Files; Advisory Boards; Organizations and Affiliations; SCE Material; Correspondence Files; and Books. The first section, Personal Materials, is a collection of biographical personal history materials. Gould collected a variety of materials for each year of his life and entitled each section, Personal History. To keep Gould's sense of his history and achievements, the material has been retained in these categories and not integrated with the rest of the collection. Much of the material spans Gould's personal life and his corporate life. A significant amount of SCE material is located in this section and provides an excellent overview of Gould's involvement in the industry, his ascension to the top of SCE leadership, and his continuing commitments to outside activities and religious affiliations.

The second section, Travel Files, is a three-box collection of itineraries and other documents pertaining to Gould's travel abroad, both personal and corporate. In addition to these traveling materials, this section also contains material from various conferences Gould attended. The trips are listed chronologically and distinguished within each year by a place-name reference. Within this reference, materials are separated by kind: itineraries, expenses, passport applications, technical drawings, and reports. These general travel files cover the years 1965-1983.

The third section, Speech Files, is a chronological arrangement of Gould's speeches, addresses, and articles for publication. The speeches cover a broad range of subjects including nuclear power, electric power, utility management, and energy needs of southern California. To locate a speech by title, refer to Appendix I which lists all speeches alphabetically.

Gould's extensive commitments to various boards across the utility and nuclear industry and his membership in many different organizations are reflected in the substantial amount of material located in section four, Advisory Boards. This section of forty-one boxes is arranged alphabetically according to board name or organization acronym. At the beginning of this section is a small number of alphabetized folders representing affiliations or boards with only a small amount of materials, less than one box. The remainder of this large section is arranged alphabetically and each organization contains one or more boxes of material.

Gould's contributions to SCE are documented in the next section entitled, SCE Material. Although a significant amount of SCE material is located in the Personal History section, this section contains twenty-one additional boxes sub-divided into two categories: corporate and topics. The first half of this section, boxes 89 to 102, primarily pertains to the maintenance and functioning of SCE as a whole. The second half, boxes 103 to 111, is arranged by topic.

The longest section of this collection, Correspondence Files, is twenty-nine boxes of office, personal, and religious correspondence. The correspondence has been arranged chronologically and has been loosely grouped into the categories of office and personal/religious. However, some overlap exists between the two categories. In creating the Correspondence Files, the internal filing system of Gould's office has been rearranged to facilitate a researcher's access to the material. Thus, the correspondence has been integrated from file headings such as "F--General" and "Gas" into a chronological sequence. To further assist the researcher, the register's index provides subject listings. Categories of correspondence which were significantly large--usually more than one folder--were given a topic heading and placed in "SCE Material--Topics."

The last section of the inventory, Books, contains fourteen books relating to SCE, energy, wind power, and Gould's membership in several organizations. Also included is a book with memorial tributes for leading scientists in which Gould wrote an article on Augusto Lam.

Addenda to the collection include personal and family materials, subject files, correspondence, articles, scrapbooks, and other papers.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library's Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.

Preferred Citation

Collection Name, Collection Number, Box Number, Folder Number. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

Organized in seven series: 1. Personal; 2. Travel; 3. Speeches; 4. Advisory Boards and Activities; 5. Southern California Edison; 6. Correspondence; and 7. Books and Addenda.

Acquisition Information

Boxes 1-146 were donated in 1988 and 1992 (72 linear feet).

Boxes 147-151 were donated in 1997 (2.5 linear feet.).

Box 152 was donated in 2000 (0.25 linear feet). Boxes 153-154 were donated in 2007 (3 linear feet).

Boxes 155-159 were donated in 2007.

Processing Note

Processed by Julie Reiser and Lisa DeMille from 1993-2008.

Addendum processed by Betsey Welland in 2012.

Click here to read a statement on harmful language in library records.

Separated Materials

See also the William R. Gould photograph collection (P0525) and audio-visual materials (A0158) in the Multimedia Division of Special Collections.

Some books given with the collection remain in its corpus and are located in the conclusory section.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Electric utilities--California--History--Sources
  • Energy development
  • Energy development--Congresses
  • Nuclear industry--United States--History--Sources
  • Nuclear power plants
  • Power resources
  • Power resources--Congresses
  • Proton-antiproton colliders
  • Renewable energy sources--United States
  • Superconducting Super Collider

Corporate Names

  • Breeder Reactor Corporation
  • Southern California Edison Company
  • Superconducting Super Collider Site Evaluation Committee
  • World Energy Conference

Geographical Names

  • Kaiparowits Plateau (Utah)

Form or Genre Terms

  • Articles
  • Autobiographies
  • Budgets
  • Correspondence
  • Memorandums
  • Reports
  • Speeches

Other Creators

  • Personal Names

    • Gould, William R., 1919-2006--Archives

Finding aid created by Julie Reiser.
1993 (last modified: 2019 and 2026)

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