A series of downturns and management missteps in the 1970s and 80s combined with large cash balances led the company to enter the financial services business.

One of the few remaining original lines of business to survive this process was the nuclear power division, which was sold to BNFL in 1999 and re-formed as Westinghouse Electric Company.

The company's largest factories were located in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lester, Pennsylvania[12] and Hamilton, Ontario, where they made turbines, generators, motors, and switch gear for the generation, transmission, and use of electricity.

[13] In addition to George Westinghouse, early engineers working for the company included Frank Conrad, Benjamin Garver Lamme, Bertha Lamme (first woman mechanical engineer in the United States), Oliver B. Shallenberger, William Stanley, Nikola Tesla, Stephen Timoshenko, and Vladimir Zworykin.

[citation needed] In 1990, Westinghouse experienced a serious setback when the corporation lost over one billion dollars due to bad high-risk, high-fee, high-interest loans made by its Westinghouse Credit Corporation lending arm.

[15] In an attempt to revitalize the corporation, the board of directors appointed outside management in the form of CEO Michael H. Jordan, who brought in numerous consultants to help re-engineer the company in order to realize the potential that they saw in the broadcasting industry.

[18] Also in 1997, the Power Generation Business Unit, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, was sold to Siemens AG of Germany.