Aldo M. deBellis

Biography

Aldo M. deBellis was born in Genoa, Italy, on January 16, 1891, and was educated at the Perugia Institute, the University of Rome, and at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, where from 1913 to 1917 he attended the evening school in electrical engineering. In 1913, shortly after coming to the United States, he began work as a draftsman with the then New York Edison Company and in 1916 transferred to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of the City of New York as assistant engineer. When the United States entered World War I, Mr. deBellis enlisted in the U. S. Navy and saw duty in foreign waters from early 1918 until late 1919, at which time he became associated with Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation, Boston. In 1920 he returned to the New York Edison Company and when the metropolitan companies were combined into Consolidated Edison Company in 1937 he became assistant inside plant engineer and later, inside plant engineer. He was appointed assistant electrical engineer of the company in 1952. For the next 35 years Mr. deBellis was closely associated with the electrical design generating stations and substations to which he contributed many basic improvements.

Aldo deBellis held patents on electric equipment and was the author and coauthor of many technical papers. He was also one of the authors of the "Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers." He served the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, now IEEE) as a member of the Automatic Stations Committee; the Electrical Machinery Committee; Subcommittee on Insulation Resistance; and the American Standards Association Sectional Committee on preferred voltages, 100 Volts and Under. He also served on the EEI Electrical Equipment Committee; the Association of Edison Illumination Companies Committee on Electric Switching and Switchgear; and two International Electrotechnical Commission Committees on Standard Voltages, Currents and Frequencies. In 1954, he was awarded the AIEE Lamme Medal "for has contributions to the design and development of power station equipment, especially air-insulated phase-isolated metal-clad high-voltage bus structures and disconnecting switches."