Remembering Stan Bessmer

The Grandfather of GE Structural Silicone Glazing

Stan Bessmer was instrumental in creating and establishing GE in Structural Silicone Glazing. Highly respected by our employees, distributors, and competitors alike, he worked for 40+ years in the construction segment between the 1960s and 1990s. He ran some of the first silicone training courses for distributors, and helped secure early SSG curtain wall work at 88 Pine, Corning Glass museum, J&J HQ, ATT, and the Metropolitan Museum Tutankhamen exhibit.

He presented SSG to Sir Norman Foster’s team in London, and afterwards met with Norman himself to discuss details for a Hong Kong project (the famous IM Pei HSBC bank tower, which used SCS1209 silver grey, a rare color choice). When he saw the final drawings for the project, they were based on his own sketches.

One of his SSG projects in Orlando, Fairwinds, from 1978, is likely one of the first 25 or so installed in the world. The photo above shows Stan in front of the building. In 2020, the building to date remains intact, constructed 42 years earlier using SCS1203 black color.

Stan passed away this year, and we honor his legacy and amazing contributions to GE Silicones and Structural Silicone Glazing. In his time, this segment was in it’s infancy, and has since gone global and become an important component of modern construction.

Thank you, Stan!

‍