Word: forde
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...corporate rebuilding job that young Ford faced was formidable. The company was losing nearly $10 million a month, and labor relations were chaotic. The new boss did what any good manager in trouble does: he sought help. Ford accepted an offer made by a brash team of former Air Force officers and signed them up in a package deal. He gave them salaries that were princely at the time, ranging from $9,000 to $16,000. Among the ten Whiz Kids, as they were called: McNamara and Arjay Miller, both of whom later became Ford presidents. Henry raided...
...Whiz Kids brought modern professional management to Ford. They introduced financial controls and restructured the company along divisional lines, much as Alfred Sloan had done at GM. In the 1950s and 1960s, under Ford and Breech, the reborn Ford Motor Co. prospered and came up with several winners, including the sporty Thunderbird in 1954 and the Mustang in 1964. One failure, though, became synonymous with marketing disaster: the Edsel in 1957. In later years, Ford was not as successful. The company lagged behind its rivals in coming up with the right mix of fuel-efficient cars after the energy crisis...
Outside the office, Ford did what he wanted, when he wanted. A reveler, Ford once led an orchestra through a swimming pool while the musicians played When the Saints Go Marching In. He divorced Anne, his wife of 24 years, in 1964 to marry Maria Cristina Vettore Austin, a divorced Italian jet-setter. That marriage broke up in 1980, and the settlement cost Henry an estimated $15 million. He married Kathleen DuRoss, at the time an operator of a Detroit disco, later that year...
...Ford was serious about using the family name for worthy causes. After the Detroit race riots in 1967 left 43 dead, Ford headed an effort to find jobs for blacks. He lent his name and money to the building of Detroit's Renaissance Center, a financial flop that lost an estimated $140 million in its first four years and had to be refinanced...
...Ford's last decisions at the company was determining who would be the first non-Ford to head it. Iacocca had been in the running, but Ford fired him in 1978. "I think you should leave," he told him. "It's best for the company." Iacocca demanded to know why this was being done to the man who fathered the Mustang and had just led Ford to two years of record profits. Ford shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sometimes you just don't like somebody." In 1980 Philip Caldwell was picked as Ford's successor...