Chas. T. Main, Inc. records

Chas. T. Main, Inc. was a Boston engineering company founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Charles T. Main in 1893. Main was a mechanical engineer working in the textile mills of New England and a major developer in the new field of hydroelectric power. He also served as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' President from 1918-1919. In 1926, the company was incorporated as Chas. T. Main, Inc. Main and his associates decided that all stock would be privately owned by senior engineers so that the company was free of outside influence and only those who knew the industry best would make decisions. By the 1950s, Chas. T. Main Inc. consulted or worked internationally on projects, including building a hydro-electric plant in Turkey and developing a plan to unify development of the water resources of the Jordan River Valley for its surrounding countries, Jordan, Syria, and Israel. Domestically, Chas. T. Main, Inc. began an association with the Atomic Energy Commission in 1949 and was responsible for supporting plutonium production reactors facilities, water treatment plants, and reactor coolant activities, among other nuclear projects. In 1956, a rock slide in the Niagara River New York destroyed two-thirds of the Niagara power capacity. Chas. T. Main, Inc. was contracted to create a power plant to compensate for the loss of power and save the area's economy. In the late 1980s, suffering management problems, the company was bought by Parsons Corporation of Pasadena, California. In 1992, the company's name was changed to Parsons Main, Inc., located in Canton, Massachusetts as a subsidiary of Parsons Corporation.