About 400 elementary- and middle-school students taking part in the Shenendehowa Inventors program will display their inventions at the former Cotton Market store at Clifton Park Center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Somewhere in Schenectady, under a garage shelf or above a basement workbench, Handy Andy may still be on the job.
If he is, Russ McPadden, Ann Wood, Stuart Oudt, Carole Prostak and their friends are the reasons. In 1954, as teenage entrepreneurs, they created the handy household helpers as part of a project for Junior Achievement.
The young businessmen and businesswomen created the Handy Andy Co. to learn about free enterprise. With sponsorship from the General Electric Elfun Society and help from the General Electric Co., the Junior Achievement team designed and manufactured Andy and put him on the market. Posted on February 8, 2010.
Teenage members of Schenectady’s Junior Achievement take a break from their Handy Andy enterprise of 1954 to pose for a group photo. The young people built the handy household helper and marketed the product.
Ann Wood was the bookkeeper for Junior Achievement's Handy Andy company. She smiles during a break from paging through the Official Record System for Junior Achievement Companies.
At 15, Russ McPadden was president of Junior Achievement's Handy Andy division in 1954. The high position did not exempt him from occasional janitorial duties at the J.A. HQ.
