Ressler, Wilbur M.

Wilbur Ressler, a lifelong Fairfield resident, started working at the Bullard Company while a student at the University of Bridgeport. He and a colleague alternated semesters working and studying. In total, Ressler worked for the company for thirty-two years in the engineering department. His father had worked in the sheet metal department during World War II.The Bullard Company was founded in 1880 by Edward Payson Bullard as the Bridgeport Machine Tool Works in a loft in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company produced vertical lathes--machine tools used in other industries such as transportation and construction. By 1890 the company had grown and was producing lathes, boring and turning mills, turret machines, standard box tools, die holders and dies, pointing tools and stop gauges. In 1894 the company name changed to Bullard Machine Tool Works. It moved its plant to Black Rock in 1917. On 4 Jan. 1929 the previously private company went public and its name changed to The Bullard Company. After years of increasing production and marketing, the company was taken over by White Consolidated Industries and business declined. The plant closed in the early 1980s and was demolished in 1983. The site is currently occupied by BJ's Warehouse.