With the help of attorney Wendell Willkie, Guild waged a legal battle that questioned the constitutionality of TVA, culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court case dismissal that forced TEPCO to sell its assets to the new federal agency.
[3] In 1904, Guild accompanied his father and his father's business partner Charles James to what would eventually be the Hales Bar Dam site, where they met with Nicholas Brady (son of New York financier Anthony N. Brady) and utilities expert Thomas E. Murray to secure funding for the dam's construction.
Guild, Sr. and James established the Chattanooga & Tennessee River Power Company that same year to oversee the dam's construction.
[4] After receiving his engineering degree in 1909, Guild joined his late father's company and aided in the completion of Hales Bar Dam.
[1][4] In the 1920s, with Guild as its vice president, TEPCO expanded rapidly, eventually acquiring control of 45 Tennessee power and utilities firms.
[5] Blue Ridge Dam, which was advanced enough to require just six employees for its operations, was completed in the early 1930s by a TEPCO subsidiary.
[4] Guild retained control of TEPCO's Chattanooga street car division, which he reorganized as Southern Coach Lines in 1941.
Guild also owned a 320-acre (130 ha) cattle and hog farm near Columbia, Tennessee, where he cured hams and sausages using old family recipes.