Jeff,

Er...it's "Vermot." The story is a great one, about character, about a man that people dismissed as insignificant and a little dotty (and frankly might have looked the part a bit!) who stuck to his beliefs and lived to see them vindicated. it is as close to heroism as one finds in horology. It is a cardinal story in the Primero legend, and we Primero fanatics devide watch models into pre-apocalypse and post-resurrection, based on the hiatus in production during which M. Vermot hid the movement. Zenith has a little video on their website in which the heroic man is interviewed - I find it moving, especiallty when he chokes up thinking about the resurrection of the Primero. It is in french, and I prepared a precis for those of you who don't parle for another website. Here it is, along the link to the video.

http://zenith-watches.com/site/#/zenith/rebirth/video

An intro describes the quartz crisis and the return ("resurrection") of mechanical movements as background. M. Vermot appears at 1:08 to comment on quartz movements. The Zenith story begins at 2:03 with the sale to American Zenith. At 2:30 M. Vermot gets introduced as he is pottering in his garden. El Primero gets introduced at 2:44. He was "chef de fabrication des ebauches," "chief of ebauche manufacturing."
2:47 - M. Vermot tells of receiving the order to stop production of the El P.
3:24 - he writes a letter to management to request that the machine tools for the El P be preserved. Denied.
4:12 - the ebauche manufactuiring building is liquidated and sold (interesting that it still has Martel signage on it at the time the video was made - Zenith had bought Martel in 1960. Or the signage could refer to the place - Pont de Martel)
4:16 - M. Vermot is asked what he did with the machine tools. He talks about again asking permission to store the material, which is refused in a patronizing way, the way he tells it ("little Vermot from Pont de Martel is mired in his swamp. He has to wake up. It is the electronic era!")
5:14 - he starts to hide the material in the "galetat" of the company (anybody know that word?)
5:24 - he tells about the few colleagues who knew what he was up to telling him he was being ridiculous, but insists that he remained confident nonetheless that mechanical movements would one day be popular again.
The narrator values the machine tools he saved at SFr 6 million.
6:26 - Vermot describes being told by new management in 1984 that mechanical movement manufacture is going to resume.
6:38 - the high point of the story (for me) is captured in M. Vermot's choking up, an intense little moment of emotion in response to the quesion:"Were you happy?" (at the news of the resumption of production)
6:51 - Narrator: "It was your dream coming to pass" Vermot: "Indeed" He seems close to tears at the memory.
7:06 - Vermot apparently kept careful notes about settings and instrunctions which allowed the resumption of production much more efficiently than would otherwise have been possible. Narrator: "A dream bolstered by some solid work. Not content with having arranged and labeled the equipment, the diminutive chief of manufacturing had consigned to a binder all the instructions necessary to put it back into function."
7:20 - "Did the new management reward you?" A watch and a banquet.
Sum up follows -- "All the parts were put back in place, production of the chronograph resumed. Today it is the star product of the company"

: I have just learned the story of the "Charles Vermont"
: Zenith El Primero, named after the man who saved the machinery
: used to produce the El Primero. The history of El Primero
: might have ended abruptly in 1975. That was when Zenith Radio
: corporation, the American company that had owned the brand for the
: past four years, decided
: to stop making mechanical watches and to stick to quartz watches.
: The decision was irrevocable.
: The order was to be executed without delay and the metal – along
: with a century of tradition –
: to be sold by the ton to the highest bidder. Charles Vermot simply
: could not face the thought of
: seeing his production equipment destroyed. At the risk of his job,
: he began hiding essential tools
: and components. Charles Vermot labelled, listed, classified and
: protected the cams, cutting tools,
: presses and machines, while recording the entire production process
: in a notebook.

: Nine years later, the El Primero movement was miraculously reborn.
: One fine morning, the entire
: set of lost equipment was back in place. Without Charles Vermot
: courageous act, the brand’s very
: survival would have been in jeopardy.

: Read more of the story here --
: http://d-signersgroup.com/Images/Images600/ZE_Editorial.pdf

: Special thanks to a Twitter pal, Tam_Hanx, who shows us his Charles
: Vermont, here --

:
: http://zenith.watchprosite.com/show-forumpost/fi-1123/pi-4806983/ti-731153/

: So can the vintage Heuer guys have a special watch named after our
: own man in Vermont, who David calls "The Master"?

: Jeff
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