Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), sometimes known as "Hank the Deuce" or simply "the Deuce", was an American businessman in the automotive industry. He was the oldest son of Edsel Ford I and oldest grandson of Henry Ford. He was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1945 to 1960, Chief executive officer (CEO) from 1947 to 1979, and chairman of the board of directors from 1960 to 1980. Under his leadership, Ford Motor Company became a publicly traded corporation in 1956. From 1943 to 1950, he also served as president of the Ford Foundation.
Early life and education
Henry Ford II was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Eleanor Clay Ford and Edsel Ford on September 4, 1917. He, brothers Benson and William, and sister Josephine, grew up amid affluence. He graduated from The Hotchkiss School in 1936. He attended Yale University, where he served on the business staff of The Yale Record, the campus humor magazine, but left in 1940 before graduation. During this time, he became a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity.
Career
When his father Edsel, president of Ford, died of cancer in May 1943 (during World War II), Henry Ford II was serving in the Navy and unable to inherit the presidency of the family-owned business. The elderly and ailing Henry Ford I, company founder, re-assumed the presidency, though mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and considered no longer fit for the presidency position by most of the company's directors. For the previous 20 years, although he had long been without any official executive title, the elder Ford kept de facto control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this moment was not different. The directors elected him, and he served until the end of the war. During this period, the company began to decline, losing over $10 million a month (). The administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a government acquisition of the company to ensure continued war production, but the idea never progressed to execution.
Henry Ford II left the Navy in July 1943 and joined the company's management a few weeks later. He assumed presidency of the business on September 21, 1945. Since it had been assumed that Edsel Ford would continue in his capacity as president of the company for much longer than turned out to be the case, Henry Ford II had received little preparation for the position, and he inherited the company during a chaotic period; its European factories had suffered a great deal of damage during the war, and domestic sales were in decline.
Henry Ford II immediately adopted an aggressive management style. One of his first acts as company president was to place John Bugas in charge of company management, dismissing much of his grandfather's inner circle, especially Harry Bennett, chief of the Ford Service Department, whom the elder Ford had hired in 1921 to oversee security at the vast Ford Rouge Plant complex, and nearly two decades later had become a lightning rod in efforts to prevent unionization of the Ford labor force, by violent means if necessary. Next, acknowledging his inexperience, Henry II hired several seasoned executives to support him. He hired former General Motors executives Ernest Breech and Lewis Crusoe away from the Bendix Corporation. Breech was to serve in the coming years as the young Ford's business mentor, and the Breech–Crusoe team would form the core of Ford's business expertise, offering much-needed experience.
Additionally, Ford hired ten young up-and-comers, known as the "Whiz Kids". These ten, gleaned from an Army Air Forces statistical team, Ford envisioned as giving the company the ability to innovate and stay current. Two of them, Arjay Miller and Robert McNamara, went on to serve as presidents of Ford themselves. A third member, J. Edward Lundy, served in key financial roles for several decades and helped to establish Ford Finance's position as a major worldwide financial operation. As a team, the "Whiz Kids" are probably best remembered as the design team for the 1949 Ford, which they took from concept to production in 19 months, and which re-established Ford as a formidable automotive company. It was reported that 100,000 orders for this car were taken the day it was introduced to the market.