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The Whiz Kids were a group of ten United States Army Air Forces veterans of World War II who became Ford Motor Company executives in 1946. The group was part of a management science operation within the Army Air Force known as Statistical Control, organized to coordinate all the operational and logistical information required to manage the waging of war. They participated in the broader revolution in logistical and organizational science that WWII fostered. After the war, some of the group discussed opportunities to go into business together. ==Members== They were led by their commanding officer, Charles B. "Tex" Thornton. The others were: * Wilbur Andreson — left after two years to return to California and became an executive with Bekins Van Lines * Charles Bosworth, retired as director of purchasing. * J. Edward Lundy, retired as chief financial officer — he remained at Ford through the 1970s and was known as one of the most powerful people in the company and as a confidant of Henry Ford II. * Robert S. McNamara, who eventually became the president of Ford. He then became the Secretary of Defense and the President of the World Bank. * Arjay Miller, rose through finance and became Ford president in the mid 1960s. After being dismissed in favor of Bunkie Knudsen, an executive recruited from General Motors, he became the dean of the Stanford Business School. * Ben Mills, became general manager of Lincoln-Mercury Division. * George Moore, left after two years to become an automobile dealer. * Francis "Jack" Reith, became head of Ford of France and was a rising star. Subsequently he was the executive responsible for the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser and heavily involved in the Edsel, both sales failures. Reith left the company to run the Crosley Division of Avco in Cincinnati, Ohio, later renamed AVCO Electronics Division. Reith committed suicide a few years later. AVCO Electronics was subsequently bought out by George Mealey in 1973 and renamed Cincinnati Electronics; in 1981 it was sold to GEC England. * James Wright, eventually head of Ford division and the car and truck group. Retired in the early 1960s after a power struggle with executive John Dykstra. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Whiz Kids (Ford)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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