I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and the chief architect of the Vietnam War, died early this morning at his home in Washington D.C.. He was 93 years old. The Washington Post obituary notes that while everyone associates his name with the Vietnam War, fewer people remember his role in Michigan’s auto industry prior to joining the Kennedy Administration.
McNamara left the service in 1946 with the Legion of Merit decoration and the rank of lieutenant colonel. Instead of returning to Harvard, he joined with nine other Air Force statistical control experts who offered their services as a group to various corporations. This extraordinary ploy resulted in all ten being hired as a team by Ford Motor Co.
Ford was admittedly plagued by deficient management at the time, and Henry Ford II, chairman of the board, sent the ten into every department to study operations and make recommendations. Their unending questions at first earned them the snide appellation “Quiz Kids,” after a radio program of the period that featured bright youngsters, but their performance soon changed the title to “whiz kids.”
Several of the “whiz kids” made careers at Ford; McNamara rose fastest and highest. Though his specialty was the application of statistics to management, he was also credited with a sense of public taste that led him to bring out new models that scored great success in the market.
Starting as manager of Ford’s office of planning and financial analysis, he rose to controller, assistant general manager of the Ford division, general manager of the division, and vice-president in charge of all car and truck divisions. In 1957 he was named a director of the corporation, and in 1960 he succeeded Henry Ford 2d as president–the first president who was not a member of the Ford family.
During his tenure, McNamara was credited with enhancing the company’s market position by emphasizing sleek, expensive cars that appealed to affluent buyers, in addition to the basic transportation that had been the company’s staple product. His biggest success was in tripling the sales of the Thunderbird, by converting it from a sports car to an expensive four-door model.
He had been president of Ford only a month when Kennedy offered him the post as secretary of defense.
One odd fact about McNamara: His middle name, strangely enough, was Strange.
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