Philip D. Reed (1899–1989) was president and chief executive officer of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

Company from 1940 to 1942 and from 1945 to 1959.

Education and early career

Reed was born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. He graduated from North Division High School in Milwaukee, and went to the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

in Madison in 1917, but quit in his freshman year to join the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

at the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

.Biography of Reed on the General Electric website
/ref> Due to an appendectomy, he was unable to join the American Expeditionary Force; when the

Armistice with Germany The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea, and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices ...

came he was in

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

training at

Fort Monroe Fort Monroe, managed by partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the National Park Service as the Fort Monroe National Monument, and the City of Hampton, is a former military installation in Hampton, Virgi ...

. Reed returned to Wisconsin to complete his degree in electrical engineering.

Career

GE

Philip Reed joined

in 1926 as a member of its law department. He became general counsel to the Incandescent Lamp Department in 1934, and in 1937, he was appointed assistant to the president of GE. In 1940, he was named chairman of GE's board of directors, which he left in 1942 to serve the U.S. government. He resumed his GE office in 1945 and retired in 1958 after 32 years of service.

Public service

After the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in 1942 he went to work for the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

as chief of the Bureau of Industries. Later he went to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

as deputy to W. Averell Harriman, who headed a

lend lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

mission to England. In 1943 he became head of the U.S. Mission for Economic Affairs, with the rank of minister, when Harriman was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

."Reed Is Given London Post; Milwaukeean to Succeed Harriman as Chief of Economic Mission" ''

Milwaukee Journal The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently o ...

'' October 20, 1943; p. L1

Council on Foreign Relations

Reed was a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1945 to 1969. The Philip D. Reed Senior Fellowship in Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations was established by a gift from the Philip D. Reed Foundation with additional financial support from the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation.

References

External links

Philip D. Reed papers
at Hagley Museum and Library American manufacturing businesspeople 1899 births 1989 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni General Electric people Businesspeople from Milwaukee General Electric chief executive officers 20th-century American businesspeople North Division High School (Milwaukee) alumni {{US-business-bio-1890s-stub