Word: thorntons
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...Berges felt that McNamara, as a former Californian, might well provide some pretty good guidance. One of the questions he asked was, "Who are the brightest men in California?" McNamara's reply was instantaneous: "Way up at the top of your list you'd better put Tex Thornton." Berges was not in California long before he shared that view and began to think of Thornton as an eventual TIME cover subject. His nearly three years of watching the dramatic progress of Tex Thornton and Litton Industries, plus long interviews with the industrialist on horseback trips through the mountains...
This was no performer re-creating the Old West, but the boss of a huge and exciting corporation that is dedicated to a relentless pursuit of the future. He is Charles Bates Thornton, 50, the chairman of California-based Litton Industries-and he was busy on horseback at the most important facet of his job: thinking. When "Tex" (he came from a small Texas town) Thornton has a problem to mull over, he finds that he does his best thinking on a solitary 30-or 40-mile ride through the mountains, where he can "look at the world down there...
...Thornton has plenty of traffic to clear. Since he took over Litton just ten years ago next month, when it was only a tiny microwave-tube company, it has developed into one of the most remarkable growth companies of the age. In that decade, Litton has increased its sales 18,570% and its earnings 10,175%. It has never had a quarter in the red. In one of the greatest acquisition sprees of all time, it has absorbed some 40 other corporations, now has 71 plants in the U.S. and twelve other countries...
...biggest corporation, with sales that have already passed the half-billion-dollar mark and will probably reach $750 million this fiscal year. By next year, if this growth continues, its sales should lift through the billion-dollar mark and put it among the top 50 U.S. companies. As for Thornton, the organizer of Ford's celebrated Whiz Kids and onetime boss of such talent as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and present Ford President Arjay Miller, Litton's success has made him a millionaire 40 times over. It has also made millionaires out of 20 other Litton executives...
...that firms often give out money that really should be used to expand and improve operations."There are some companies paying out dividends that would actually be showing no profit at all if they were making the proper set-aside for depreciation of their facilities," says Charles B. ("Tex") Thornton, chairman of California's fast-rising Litton Industries. Litton has never in its ten-year history declared a cash dividend, preferring-as many other companies do-to hand out additional shares of stock to its shareholders and to use the retained earnings for expansion and modernization...