Oral history interview with Robert Sherman Hatfield [electronic resource], 1975

Biographical Note

Corporation executive.

Scope and Contents

Education; sales training program at Continental Can; Jersey City plant production; changes in manufacture during World War II; personnel involved in development of beer can production; cone top vs. flat top cans; impact of Robert Heller Associates; post-war tin allocation program; administrative centralization/decentralization under Hans Eggerss, General Clay, Thomas Fogarty; area manager, 1952-6; formation of and problems with Southern Division; distinction between line and staff executive functions; promotions to executive vice president, later Chief Operating Officer; 1959 price war in metal cans; extruded and drawn wall method for two-piece can, Conoweld process; self-manufacture; Conoplan; environmental questions; international expansion; forecasts for metal, forest and diversified products.

Subjects

• Containers.
• Continental Can Company.
• Executives--Interviews.
• Factory management.
• Hatfield, Robert Sherman--Interviews.
• International business enterprises.
• Interviews.
• Manufacturing processes.
• Nackman, Mark E., interviewer.
• Oral histories.