Word: semon
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DIED. WALDO SEMON, 100, inventor and holder of 116 patents including vinyl and bubble gum; in Hudson, Ohio. As a young researcher for B.F. Goodrich, he turned a little-known chemical called polyvinyl chloride into a flexible, functional material. And as the U.S. was on the verge of depleting its natural rubber supply during World War II, he led the effort to produce a viable synthetic...
Ford could afford to play high-stakes games, and he had fun doing it. He stunned the automobile world in 1968, when he offered the presidency of Ford to Semon ("Bunkie") Knudsen, then a top executive at General Motors. Ford rented an Oldsmobile and drove to Knudsen's house to offer him the job. Within 19 months, though, Ford fired Knudsen, who had made the error of trying to get too chummy with the boss. One mistake: he constantly barged into Ford's office without knocking...
There are serious doubts in the auto industry, though, that the DMC-12 will turn into a collector's item, like the Cord or the Edsel. One such skeptic is Semon ("Bunkie") Knudsen, retired president of Ford Motor Co. and mentor of De Lorean when both were at GM. Says he: "Usually you have to have cars built in really small quantities to be collector's items, perhaps 700 or less...
Last year White lost $69 million on sales of $1.2 billion. Currently, White and its chairman, Semon E. ("Bunky") Knudsen, are in a desperate race against disaster. The company missed a May 1 deadline for repaying more than $100 million in short-term bank loans, and so far has failed to negotiate an extension; the loans now can be called any day that the banks lose patience. The White Motor Credit Co., a financing subsidiary, owes another $200 million. In recent months, White Motor has sought a sorely needed infusion of capital by trying to merge with Cleveland...
...Semon ("Bunkie") Knudsen once articulated his work ethic in those words, and Detroit veterans recalled them when he surprisingly was passed over for the presidency of General Motors in 1968. Sure enough, Knudsen has since found plenty of jobs. He shifted from executive vice president of GM to president of Ford Motor Co., but lost that position after a power struggle with Lee Iacocca, the current president. Then Knudsen founded Rectrans Inc. to produce mobile homes, only to sell out in 1971 to Cleveland's White Motor Corp. Part of the deal was that he would become chairman...