Matrimonial Court and a member of the Dicesan Grade and High School Board. He is Chaplain of the Peoria Tobi Club (Youth); Secretary, Diocesan Clergyman's Aid Society; Principal, St. Mary's Cathedral Grade School; instructor, the Academy of Our Lady High School, and a director of the Tonti Lodge, a summer camp for children.
Orville F. Haas
The office of Commercial Vice-President of the huge General Electric Company, is held today by a former El Paso boy, Orville F. Haas of Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr Court, Pennsylvania. Orville was born January 1, 1895 at Panola, the son of Peter W. Haas (not to be confused with the well-known plumber) and Mary (Hauck) Haas. He graduated from the El Paso High School in 1913, and in 1918 received his B. S. degree from the University of Illinois, where he majored in electrical engineering.
Orville joined the General Electric Company at Cleveland, Ohio as a lighting engineer, and was later transferred to the lamp department in New York City as assistant general manager. After ten years, he was transferred in 1938 to Philadelphia, a move which made him general manager of his department. In 1946 Orville was elected to his present position as Commercial Vice-President, with responsibility in all phases of the company's activities and products in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia.
Mr. Haas married Ruth Nelson Sublett, a graduate of Vassar, in 1923, and to them three daughters were born: Julia Haas Webb, (Mt. Holyoke, 1948), Elizabeth Ann, (Vassar, 1950) and Mary Margaret. Mr. Haas belongs to a great number of clubs: University Club, Cleveland; Seaview Country Club, Absecon, New Jersey; the University Club, Aronimink Golf Club, Engineers Club and the Clinkers, all of Philadelphia, and the Honorary Marketing Fraternity and Lamba Mu Sigma. He is either a director or a trustee of: the Electrical Association of Philadelphia, Junior Achievement of Philadelphia, and Elfun Trusts of New York City.
Several years ago Orville purchased a 350 acre farm some thirty-five miles west of Philadelphia where he spends the summer and weekends the year around. He has riding horses, chickens, pigs, and sizable herd of registered Aberdeen Angus cattle.
"Those El Paso days were happy ones," Orville now recalls. "As a youngster I'd practice my horseback riding, hoping to become good enough to join El Paso's own Kemp Sister's Wild West Shows. Then there were those bobsled parties out at Bullock's hill, carefree school days, enjoyment from books at the library; these memories will remain with me always, as will the memories of dear friends of my youth."
One of those friends recalls the time Orville took part in his first school play. Orville had a tremendous shotgun in his part in Cricket on the Hearth (the friend played the cricket) and he scared the rest of
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