On the Home Front
ALUMNUS ELECTED TO IMPORTANT POSITION IN GENERAL MOTORS
IN A RECENT LETTER, written at the request of the editor to describe his war work and distinguished career, Albert Bradley '15 said:
"I feel fortunate in having been permitted to play on the General Motors team." This is his modest statement concerning his recent appointment as executive vice president of General Motors Corporation.
Holding membership in Phi Beta Kappa and 8.5., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees, Mr. Bradley, as early as 1917, gave indications of possessing a brilliant future. At the close of the last war he was district accounting officer in the Detroit District for the Department of Air Service, and had supervision over the comptrollers of that District from the financial end. These comptrollers included Buick, Cadillac, Fisher Body, Packard, Ford, and others. It was while in this capacity that he met some of the General Motors executives, and shortly after being discharged from the Army he entered the service of General Motors as an assistant to the comptroller.
From that point on, Mr. Bradley's advance to his present position was only a matter of time. In the same year, 1919, he became assistant comptroller, and then assistant treasurer of the corporation. In 1927 he became general assistant treasurer and in 1929 he was made a vice president. During the thirties he was successively a director and member of the finance committee, a member of the executive committee, and a member of the policy and administration committee. In June, 1940, he was transferred from the New York office to the Detroit office, and shortly thereafter became group executive in charge of the car and truck Divisions, and executive assistant to the president. Early in 1942 he was appointed a member of the war administration committee, and a few months later he was elected to his present position.
The general problem of war conversion, building of plants, and getting new goods into production has been a tremendous one for this as for all other companies, and its accomplishment, in this case, has been possible, according to Mr. Bradley, only because General Motors is decentralized from the standpoint of operation and centralized as to control and policy.
Explaining the "General Motors team" Mr. Bradley has said, "A good many of the executives of General Motors have been working together for about twenty years. In such a large organization, whatever we may be able to accomplish represents largely the results of a team effort, rather than of any particular individual."
Mr. Bradley's individual effort has been no small thing if the directors of a company which employs more than 640,000 persons in the United States and Canada have selected him as one of its two executive vice presidents.
ALBERT BRADLEY '15 Executive vice president of General Motors Corporation, directing war work ofthe greatest importance. His son, CharlesW., is a member of the class of 1943.
