Norvin Green

Norvin Green (April 17, 1818 – February 13, 1893) was an American businessman, physician and politician. He served as president of the Western Union Telegraph Company from 1878 until his death in 1893. He was a founding member and the first president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), which later became part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Early life Green was born in New Albany, Indiana, on April 17, 1818, the son of Virginians Joseph Strother Green and Susan Ball. The family moved to Breckinridge County, Kentucky, when he was a child. As a young man he operated a flatboat grocery on the Ohio River, then ran a business that cut and sold cord wood to steamboat operators. That same year he married Martha English of Carrollton, Kentucky. They had five children together. He was appointed to supervise the construction of a federal customs house and post office in Louisville in 1853. He, along with others including Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, formed the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884; he was its first president.