Word: dykstra
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Looking squarely into the TV camera, the husky, blue-eyed Dutchman smiled disarmingly and had only one thing to say: "Gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity of being president of Ford-and who wouldn't?" With such candor, John Dykstra. 63, acknowledged his elevation last week to the presidency of the nation's second biggest automaker (after General Motors). The appointment seemed to surprise him as well as everyone else...
There was more logic than that to the choice. Hard-driving John Dykstra has helped Ford make substantial progress in solving a prime problem-quality control. As vice president for manufacturing, he has haunted the production lines, insisting on tighter inspection, better workmanship. Chiefly through his efforts Ford raised the quality of its cars and trucks so markedly that it was able to catch the rest of the industry by surprise last October by offering a twelve-month or 12,000-mile warranty instead of the then standard three months or 4,000-mile guarantee. Says Dykstra: "We are striving...
...being done less than perfectly, Dykstra likes to jump in and show how to do it. Shortly after joining Ford in 1947 (following stints as factory manager for Hudson and Oldsmobile), Dykstra became chief of the now defunct aircraft engine plant at Chicago. Exasperated by one division's repeated failures to machine propeller shafts to the close tolerances required by the Government contract, he hauled the department chief back to the shop after work, told him to watch, and began to machine a shaft himself. At 5 a.m., with the weary department chief still watching, Dykstra completed the shaft...
...crush of female room applications has now forced the university to make over Dykstra Hall as well. Originally all male, it will now house girls on the top four of its ten floors. Last week Dean of Residence Byron Atkinson was busily arranging "suitable security measures." Among them: thick walls between male and female elevators. Since the fire-escape doors open down, Atkinson presumes that they are "safe" (if only the men are aggressors). "We are not planning to set up flamethrowers or machine guns at strategic passes," said he. "All we can do is try not to make...
Died. Clarence A. Dykstra, 67, former President of the University of Wisconsin (1937-45), more recently provost of the University of California at Los Angeles; of a heart attack; in Laguna Beach, Calif. Dr. Dykstra acted as chief of the Selective Service System for a year, resigned in 1941 to head briefly the National Defense Mediation Board...