Charles A. Coffin

Charles Albert Coffin (December 31, 1844 – July 14, 1926) was an American businessman who was the co-founder and first president of General Electric corporation. Early life He was born in Fairfield, Maine, the son of Albert Coffin and his wife Anstrus (Varney). He married Caroline Russell of Holbrook, Massachusetts, and had three children. Career At age 18, he moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, to join his uncle Charles E. Coffin and his shoe company, at which he spent the next twenty years. Eventually he established his own shoe factory named Coffin and Clough in Lynn. In 1883, he was approached by another Lynn businessman, Silas A. Barton, to bring to town a struggling electric company from New Britain, Connecticut, finance it and lead it. With the engineering work of Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston, Coffin was able to build up the company, renamed Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to be an equal to Thomas Edison's companies.