Word: copelands
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Fighting down a temporary temptation to become a doctor, Copeland took a degree in industrial chemistry at Harvard ('28), then made a modest debut in the family company. He started as an expediter for small orders, but was laid off when the Depression struck. Back in the company after only four months, he began to rise with predictable speed: board member at the age of 37, then corporate secretary, chairman of the finance committee, vice president. In 1962 Crawford Greenewalt-whose wife is a Du Pont and a first cousin of Copeland's-moved to the chairmanship after...
...fine distinction, Copeland is known to old family friends as "Motsy" and to top business aides as "Mots." He is far from being as aggressive, outgoing and articulate as most modern executives-but, then, his role as steward of the family company does not require those qualities of him. An inside man, Copeland seldom deals with anyone below general manager, rarely meets customers or suppliers, has little contact with the chiefs of other big companies, has never spoken with President Johnson or any Administration officials. He spends full time on top policy, helping to decide which men to promote...
Pistols in the Basement. Like many an ancient riche, Copeland works at underplaying his wealth in public. He leaves his Cadillac at home and each morning drives himself eight miles to work in a Corvair. But his private pleasures are elegantly expensive: salmon fishing in Scotland, cattle breeding on his 3,000-acre farm in Maryland, duck-shooting parties on the Chesapeake (he keeps his eye sharp on a pistol range in his basement). Copeland is also a gourmet and oenological expert who belongs to Le Tastevin, an exclusive society devoted to fine wines, and he employs a French chef...
...Copeland's hilltop estate is only one of the largest in the woodland Delaware area known as the "Du Pont Chateau Country," where the family's estates lock one into another to form a magnificent preserve for shooting and fox hunting. Proud of their French Huguenot ancestry, the Du Fonts have given their places such names as Montchanin, Granogue, Chevannes, Nemours, Louviers and Bois des Fosses. The houses contain the big-game trophies bagged by the family on African safaris, the pictures of such Du Pont yachts as the American Eagle (a 1964 America's Cup contender...
...Copeland himself last year earned $349,846 in salary and bonus-a sum that pales in comparison with the $3,400,000 he collected in dividends on his Du Pont and Christiana shares. But the statistic that he watches most closely is Du Pont's profit as a percentage of invested capital. The company always aims for a 10% return on investment, usually comes close to achieving it. This year the figure has risen somewhat above the 8.6% of 1963, but the gain is not enough to satisfy Copeland, despite Du Pont's rising sales. Says he: "When...