J. Edward Lundy, a retired Ford Motor Co. executive who joined the company with Robert McNamara and eight other World War II veterans known as the Whiz Kids, died Oct. 2, 2007. He was 92.
Lundy graduated from the University of Iowa in 1936, and then studied economics at Princeton. Without the formality of a graduate degree, he was hired by the University to teach economics from 1940 through 1942, when he resigned to join the Army Air Force (where he rose from private to major).
In 1946, the Whiz Kids offered their services to the young Henry Ford II, whose Ford Motor Co. hadn’t made a profit in years. The company then prospered, with Robert McNamara becoming Ford’s president in 1960 (in 1961 President Kennedy appointed him Secretary of Defense).
Lundy, meanwhile, had changed automotive finance from simple accounting to an important tool for managing and forecasting. According to a Ford spokesman, some of his financial rules are still referred to as “Lundyisms.” Lundy became executive vice president and CFO in 1967, retired in 1979, and remained on the board of directors until 1985.
Lundy was a member of the Princeton Club of Detroit. He had no known survivors.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.