Ford Veteran Ed Lundy Passes Away
After World War II, in 1946, the Ford Motor Company hired ten men out of the Army Air Corps who rapidly became known as the Whiz Kids. One of them was J. Edward Lundy who stayed with the company into the 1970s. He was a power player at the automotive giant, one with close ties to Henry Ford II.
Ed Lundy died yesterday at age 92. He retired in 1979 as the executive vice president of finance and stayed on the board until age 70. In a statement issued by the company Bill Ford said Lundy “re-wrote the rules of finance in the auto industry” over a career spanning some 33 years.
That period of the late 1940s and early 1950s were indeed a golden age for business and manufacturing in the United States. Men like Lundy who gained a special level of confidence on the battlefields of World War II came back state-side ready to tackle the home-front with the same creativity, energy, and sheer guts.
The loss of someone like Ed Lundy can be measured on many levels. More than 1,000 World War II vets die every day and take their stories with them. But Lundy was also a pioneer of the post-war business boom that propelled the United States into the greatest period of prosperity in her modern history.
Lundy lived to see the company he loved battling to remain competitive with foreign automakers and on the day he died Ford reported sales losses of up to 20% for the previous month. But without Ed Lundy, Ford would never have gained the supremacy it enjoyed through much of the late 20th century. He was a luminary of the industry and may he rest well.