Pm587 Course Project Phase1

Memo

To: Senior Management

From: Portfolio Management Team

Date: September 27, 2011

Re: SBU Proposal

Industry Background

Ford Motors Corporation was started by Henry Ford. Born in Wayne County,

Michigan, in an area that later became Dearborn, on July 30, 1863, Henry Ford was the oldest of six children. In April 1888, Ford married Clara Bryant, a local girl and the foster child of—like Henry—Irish immigrant farmers. In 1893, his only child, Edsel, was born. Success soon came to him as he took a position in 1891 as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company and fairly quickly climbed the ranks.

With his love for the outdoors and rural values, Ford might have easily remained in agriculture but something even stronger pulled at Ford’s imagination: mechanics, machinery, and understanding how things worked and what new possibilities lay in store. In the 1980’s, he focused particularly on internal combustion engines. Henry Ford called his first vehicle the Quadricycle. It attracted enough financial backing for Ford to leave his engineer position at Edison Illuminating and helped found the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. The company faltered for a variety of reasons, and in 1901 Ford left to pursue his own work again. Later that year, the Henry Ford Company was born, but Henry Ford himself stayed with it only a few months. He left in early 1902 to devote more time to refining his vehicles.

Ford recognized that with the right techniques, cars could be made affordable for the general public—and that the general public would want them. Ford focused on making the manufacturing process more efficient so he could produce more cars and charge less for each.

Henry Ford retired (for the first time) in 1919, and handed leadership of his company to his son, Edsel. In 1943, Edsel died from cancer at age 49, Henry returned as president of the company in his 80’s. On September 21, 1945, Henry Ford II, Edsel's eldest son and Henry's eldest grandson, succeeded...