Mesta Machinery

[5] By 1919 Mesta employed 3,000 at West Homestead and manufactured everything from ship propeller shafts to giant turbines for power plants and dams.

[6] In 1917, George's wife Perle Mesta wrote that the works "was a thrilling site, spread over many acres on the banks of the Monongahela."

He would regularly cheer on his workers and had a ritual of standing on a hastily made stage every time Mesta won a new contract and exclaiming: "We got this job because you’re the best mechanics in the world!"

He often had face-to-face talks with employees and would work the factory floor on weekends, holidays and Christmas, asking workers about new babies or ailing family members.

Iversen credited his employment policy based on human relations as the chief reason his workers rejected unionization.

[2] Mesta specialized in manufacturing 16-inch naval guns, ship-propeller shafts, artillery carriages and "Long Toms" 155-mm cannons.

[3] During the war, Iversen transformed Mesta into one of the nation's top ordnance suppliers, personally working 18-hour shifts in the factory.

[8][9] In September 1959, Nikita Khrushchev visited the Mesta Machinery Co. factory on his tour of the U.S., where he received a cigar from a worker.