Word: macklis
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...most Americans, the phrase "built like a Mack truck" conveys a feeling of strength and solidity. Founded by three machinist-blacksmiths and wagonmakers in 1900, Mack Trucks, Inc. made the first gas-driven bus (for sightseeing in Brooklyn's Prospect Park), the first motor-driven hook & ladder. Mack soon became the leader in the heavy truck industry; year after year its earnings were good, its dividends fat. But in 1949 the oldest truckmaker in the U.S. no longer seemed to be built like a Mack. Sales were well down from 1947's peacetime peak of $124 million...
...Mack's directors knew one way out: change the management. Out of the presidency went Charles T. Ruhf, a 40-year Mack employee and president since 1943. In as $100,000-a-year president and chairman went Edwin Dagobert Bransome, 57, a Mack director and a rough & ready executive who had put one other wobbly company back on its feet. Last week President Bransome proved that the name Mack was again synonymous with strength. In 1950, he reported, Mack's sales jumped nearly 50% to $123 million, its net to $1.3 million...
...simple: "First find out what's wrong, then correct it." He found plenty to correct. Advertising was virtually nonexistent. The company's purchasing, run by four men, was spread all over the lot. So was its production: no less than 72 different models were coming off Mack's Allentown, Pa. assembly lines. There was little coordination between sales and production divisions, and no information on the day-to-day operations of the company. Said Bransome: "By the time sales figures got to me, they were months...
...Some of Mack's management were shuffled upstairs, and Bransome brought in three new top executives: H. William Dodge, ex-boss of sales for the Texas Co., as executive vice president; Sigmund S. Stewart, formerly purchaser for the Air Reduction Co., Inc., as purchasing head; and A. R. Kelso, president of Farmingdale Corp. (airplane parts), as production chief. To cut production costs, Bransome enlarged Mack's engine plant at Plainfield, N.J., moved its transmission and gear production there from nearby New Brunswick...
...such glamorous old hangouts as the Persian Room of Manhattan's Plaza, was in the midst of a barnstorming tour of 65 one-night stands. Her caravan included her own chauffeur-driven Cadillac, five other sedans for her staff and ten-piece orchestra, and a pastel-yellow Mack truck for the musical instruments and her four trunks of gowns...