Robert W. Galvin (1922 - 2011)

Telecommunications Pioneer. As chief executive of Motorola for over 40 years, he built his company from a manufacturer of police radios and television sets into a world leader in the electronics industry. In 1959, Galvin was named CEO of Motorola after the death his father, company founder Paul Galvin. He oversaw Motorola’s pioneering efforts in […]

Ernest Gallo (1909 - 2007)

Businessman. He was the patriarch of the family-owned Ernest and Julio Gallo Winery in Modesto, California. The company is the largest winemaker in the world, and the producer of several popular brands including Carlo Rossi wines and Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers.  Family links:  Parents:  Joseph Gallo (1883 – 1933)  Assunta Bianco Gallo (1887 – […]

John Galardi (1938 - 2013)

Fast Food Entrepreneur. He was best known for being the founder of Wienerschnitzel, the world’s largest hot dog chain. At age 19, he began working at Taco Tia restaurant in Pasadena, California, when he decided to create an idea to compete with Glen Bell, who founded Taco Bell. In 1961, he a opened a hot […]

William Maxwell Gaines (1922 - 1992)

Publisher. He published comedy and parody “MAD Magazine”.

Thomas Gaff (1808 - 1884)

Industrialist, Financier. A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, he came to America with his parents in 1811 and settled in Springfield, New Jersey. Educated in private schools, he learned papermaking from his father and the distillery business from his uncle, Charles Wilson. With his brothers, John and James, he opened a distillery in Philadelphia in the […]

Assar Gabrielsson (1891 - 1962)

Swedish Idustrialist and co-founder of Volvo. In 1924 he teamed with Gustaf Larson and founded Volvo, and the first Volvo was produced three years later, 1927. He was the company’s vice-president for 30 years, 1926-1956 and subsequently Chairman of the board until his death.  (bio by: Peter Robsahm)

Tousuke Fukuzawa (1970 - 1970)

Business magnate. Founded the Daido Electric Power Company. To some, he was known as “The King of Electric Power.” (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Raita Fujiyama (1863 - 1938)

Raita Fujiyama Fujiyama was born in Matsuura-gun in Hizen Province (modern-day Imari City, Saga Prefecture), to the village headman and a feudal retainer of the Saga Domain. After studying at the Kodokan (a school of the Saga Domain), he studied at the Nagasaki Normal School (a school of education). When he graduated, he took jobs […]

Ginjiro “The Paper Manufacturing King of Japan” Fujiwara (1869 - 1960)

Businessman. He is best know for establishing the Fujihara Foundation of Science in 1959. He headed the former Oji Paper before the Pacific War. (Oji Paper was the predecessor of today’fs Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. and Oji Paper Co., Ltd.) To establish the Foundation, Mr. Fujiwara contributed 100 million yen from his own funds. […]

Den Fujita (1926 - 2004)

Noted Japanese Businessman. Born in Osaka Japan, while attending the University of Tokyo, he founded Fujita Shoten, an importer of high-quality general merchandise. In 1971 he founded and became president of McDonald’s Japan Company, Ltd. Under his leadership over the years, the burger chain grew to more than 3,000 stores nationwide and the largest McDonald […]

Roy August Fruehauf (1908 - 1965)

Businessman. Fruehauf was Chairman of the Board for the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation. He became chairman after his brother, Harvey Fruehauf retired. He helped produce semi-trailers equipped to ride railroad flatcars.  Family links:  Parents:  August Charles Fruehauf (1868 – 1930)  Sibling:  Harvey Fruehauf (1893 – 1968)*  Roy August Fruehauf (1908 – 1965) *Calculated relationship

Harvey Fruehauf (1893 - 1968)

Businessman. Chairman of the Board for the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation. Son of founder August Fruehauf.  Family links:  Parents:  August Charles Fruehauf (1868 – 1930)  Spouse:  Angela Peck Fruehauf (1892 – 1980)*  Sibling:  Harvey Fruehauf (1893 – 1968)  Roy August Fruehauf (1908 – 1965)* *Calculated relationship

August Charles Fruehauf (1868 - 1930)

Founder of Fruehauf Trailer Corporation in Detroit, Michigan.  Family links:  Parents:  Carl   Fruehauf (1824 – 1894)  Christine Susanna Hoffmeyer Fruehauf (1835 – 1919)  Children:  Harvey Fruehauf (1893 – 1968)*  Roy August Fruehauf (1908 – 1965)*  Sibling:  Henrietta Fruehauf Spader (1863 – 1925)*  August Charles Fruehauf (1868 – 1930) *Calculated relationship

Georgia Frontiere (1927 - 2008)

Professional Football Team Owner. A former nightclub entertainer, she became the principal owner of the Los Angeles Rams football team when her husband, Carroll Rosenbloom,  died in April 1979. Under her leadership the Rams franchise relocated from California to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1995. There they had great success,  making the playoffs five out of […]

David Frisch (1902 - 1970)

Restaurateur. Founder of Frisch’s Big Boy Restaurants, a franchise chain in five states with over 120 locations. David assumed the operation of his family’s restaurant in Norwood, Ohio when his father died in 1923. After selling it to his brothers a decade later, he opened his own restaurant nearby and was soon setback by bankruptcy […]

Henry Clay Frick (1849 - 1919)

Businessman. He made his fortune in the coke making business and was known as the “Coke King.” He merged his vast coke and railroad interests with those of Andrew Carnegie the “Steel King”  to form the Carnegie Corp which later became the United States Steel Corp.  Family links:  Parents:  John Wilson Frick (1822 – 1888) […]

Samuel French (1970 - 1970)

Publisher. He was a pioneering publisher and licenser of plays and musicals. He set up his publishing company in New York in 1854, and in 1859 visited London, where he met Thomas Hailes Lacy, a former actor working as a theatrical bookseller. The two men went into partnership, with the resulting company trading in both […]

John French (1872 - 1903)

French formed the St. Louis Motor Carriage Company in 1900 with George P. Dorriss. They produced 85 automobles. Ironically, Mr. French died as a result of an automobile accident in Pittsburgh. He was on a business trip & took a trial spin in a new car & collided with another car. He suffered severe head […]

William “1st Baron Strathalmond” Fraser (1888 - 1970)

Oil magnate whose commercial acumen led to the formation of Shell Mex/BP in 1931. Dirextor of BP and of Burmah Oil. (bio by: David Conway)  Family links:  Spouse:  Mary Roberton McLintock Fraser (1892 – 1963)*  Children:  William Fraser (1916 – 1976)* *Calculated relationship

Herbert H. Franklin (1866 - 1956)

Inventor, Businessman. An automotive Pioneer, in 1901 he teamed up with engineer John Wilkinson to delevope an air-cooled engine. When Wilkinson lost interest in project, Franklin assumed control of the company, renaming it the Franklin Automobile Company. The first Franklin car was sold in 1902 and produced the first air-cooled automobile engine. Franklin cars were […]

Sir Joseph Francis (1801 - 1893)

Founder of U. S. Life Saving Service and American Ship Wreck Society.  Family links:  Spouse:  Ellen Francis (____ – 1872)*  Children:  Isaac P. Francis (1834 – 1910)* *Calculated relationship

Richard Kyle Fox (1846 - 1922)

Newspaper Publisher.  He is considered the “Father of the Tabloid”. Born in Ireland, he worked as a journalist and newspaper editor there until he immigrated to the United States in 1874. He took over as owner and editor of “The National Police Gazette” in 1877 and made it one of the most widely-read newspapers in […]

John M. Fox (1912 - 2003)

Businessman. He was the founder of The Minute Maid Corporation which revolutionized frozen orange juice concentrate. He also popularized the Chiquita brand-name banana by putting the Chiquita sticker on the bananas. (bio by: John  Sheets)

Eldridge Locke Fox (1936 - 2002)

Businessman. A long-time manager and owner also former baritone vocalist of the Kingsmen Quartet in Asheville, North Carolina, he started Pinnacle Records and Horizon Records. He produced recordings for hundreds of groups, including “Gold City”, “The Greenes”, “HeavenBound”, “The Primitive Quartet”, “The Gospel Enforcers” and more. (bio by: Paul J. Lambert)  Family links:  Parents:  Denver […]

Max Foster (1906 - 1996)

Businessman. He was the founder and patriarch of Foster Farms poultry and dairy company. In 1939, Foster was a city editor at the Modesto Bee when he and his wife, Verda, made a down payment on a repossessed 80-acre farm near Modesto, California, using $1,000 borrowed on a life insurance policy. They began raising turkeys […]

John Baptiste Ford (1811 - 1903)

Industrialist. He founded Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Family links:  Spouse:  Mary Bower Ford (1806 – 1897)* *Calculated relationship

Henry Ford, II (1917 - 1987)

Businessman. An automobile magnate, he was born the first of four children to Edsel and Eleanor Clay Ford, (and was the first grandchild of industrial pioneer Henry Ford). In May 1943, his father Edsel Ford died, and his frail aging grandfather Henry Ford became company President again. Henry Ford II was serving in the United […]

Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)

Pioneer Industrialist.  Founder of the Ford Motor Company.  He was a Midwestern farm boy with a grammar school education who rose to become the world’s largest auto manufacturer.  In an era when automobiles were hand-crafted luxury items,  he developed the mass-produced Model T,  the first car the average person could afford.  In the process he […]

Edsel Bryant Ford (1893 - 1943)

Ford Motor Company President. The only child of Henry Ford I and Clara Bryant, he married Eleanor Lowthian Clay in 1916. A designer and executive, he was the first secretary of the Ford Motor Company, becoming its president in 1921 and serving until 1943. He developed the collections of decorative arts and Americana at the […]

Benson Ford, Sr (1919 - 1978)

Second son of Edsel Bryant Ford I and Eleanor Lowthian Clay, he was at first named Edsel Junior, but re-named Benson, a Hudson family name, his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Easygoing, affable and good-humored, he worked in the Ford Rouge with Henry Ford II, his older brother, until their enlistment after Pearl Harbor. In June […]