Post by Logan on Apr 20, 2016 21:58:09 GMT -6
Charles Pilliod, Cuyahoga Falls native who became U.S. ambassador and Goodyear CEO, chairman, dies at age 97
Charles J. Pilliod Jr., who rose from the lowest levels at Goodyear to become its chairman and chief executive officer, and who also served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, died Monday. He was 97.
Mr. Pilliod was born in 1918 in Cuyahoga Falls and hired by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 1941 as a production trainee, making 67 cents an hour. By the time he retired as CEO, his annual salary hit $883,500, making him the highest paid executive in the Akron-Canton region. And he became one of the most powerful men in Akron.
Even though he was exempt from the draft, Mr. Pilliod enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942 and became a B-29 Superfortress bomber pilot in World War II. He flew 15 bombing missions in Japan and China, including the first successful Japanese mainland attack in 1944 after Doolittle’s Raiders’ historic bombing of Tokyo in 1942.
A Fortune magazine story from 1977 said that when Mr. Pilliod visited Japan as a high-level Goodyear executive well after the war, a host asked if he knew a certain Japanese city.
Read more: www.ohio.com/business/charles-pilliod-cuyahoga-falls-native-who-became-u-s-ambassador-and-goodyear-ceo-chairman-dies-at-age-97-1.677081
Charles J. Pilliod Jr., who rose from the lowest levels at Goodyear to become its chairman and chief executive officer, and who also served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, died Monday. He was 97.
Mr. Pilliod was born in 1918 in Cuyahoga Falls and hired by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 1941 as a production trainee, making 67 cents an hour. By the time he retired as CEO, his annual salary hit $883,500, making him the highest paid executive in the Akron-Canton region. And he became one of the most powerful men in Akron.
Even though he was exempt from the draft, Mr. Pilliod enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942 and became a B-29 Superfortress bomber pilot in World War II. He flew 15 bombing missions in Japan and China, including the first successful Japanese mainland attack in 1944 after Doolittle’s Raiders’ historic bombing of Tokyo in 1942.
A Fortune magazine story from 1977 said that when Mr. Pilliod visited Japan as a high-level Goodyear executive well after the war, a host asked if he knew a certain Japanese city.
Read more: www.ohio.com/business/charles-pilliod-cuyahoga-falls-native-who-became-u-s-ambassador-and-goodyear-ceo-chairman-dies-at-age-97-1.677081