WGES Spotlight

C. DeWitt “Pete” Peterson, WG’56

‘Pete” Peterson has been active with WGES from its very beginning and has served on the Leadership Committee for the past decade.

A veteran of the US Navy, he was on active duty aboard destroyers for 3 years, in the Mediterranean and in Korea. In addition, he remained in the US Naval Reserve following his service of over three years and periodically trained new recruits.

A New Jersey native, Pete grew up in Elizabeth, Westfield, and Lake Mohawk, attending Lincoln School, Sparta Grade School, Hamilton Junior High School, and Newton High School. He majored in Government at Tufts while on a NROTC Scholarship and participated in cross country and wrestling.

At Wharton, ‘Pete’’ majored in Industrial Management and graduated in 1956. He then joined The Norton Company in Worcester as an industrial engineer in the new Industrial Ceramics Division where he was involved in 3 new plant projects, saving an insulating product, and revamping order processing. He became an engineering administrator at Raytheon concerned with the Polaris and Apollo programs. At Simmonds Precision Products, which made nearly all of the fuel management systems for anything leaving the earth’s surface, he was Industrial Engineering Manager, Apollo Program Manager, and Controller. Returning to Norton he was Division Human Relations and Industrial Engineering Manager and served on several corporation bodies and wrote the Norton Plan.

In 1972 he joined Burlington County College, a new institution, as Head of Business Studies, which grew to 29 programs, 26 faculty, and 200 adjuncts, serving the business world of the area. After 16 years, he became a full time professor, teaching 15 different courses from management and economics to TQM, labor management, accounting, technical writing, communications, and business math for 12 years.

‘Pete’ has kept active in the Naval Reserve, being in several different units in MA, VT, RI, and NJ. He served as training officer for 2 Construction Battalion Units and Commanding Officer for a surface division and a research company. He organized a two week seminar at the Naval War College.

He was founding president of Tri-State Jazz Society in the Philly area for 16 years, and a member and supporter of several other jazz societies. He is well known for the traditional jazz, hosting concerts and jazz picnics, he hosted for 16 year in Southern New Jersey