Looking a little like Tom Selleck with a dark mustache and mop of chestnut brown hair, Bill Swift posed with new bride, Mary, in front of his flashy 1955 Ford Thunderbird silver convertible on their big day in 1987.
The couple met at Ford, got married at the Henry Ford Museum grounds, and retired from Ford around the same time. The blue oval has been a constant thread throughout their lives. To this day, Bill and Mary enjoy cruising in their classic cars—as well as Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Naturally, collector cars are a passion—one of Swift’s favorites is a muscle-heavy V-8 1967 Mustang—but despite retiring two decades ago, he still keeps his eye on emerging automotive trends.
“I was the first one in town (Traverse City, Michigan) to get the new all-electric Mach E Mustang,” Swift said. “Balancing nostalgia and the future really is inherent to the auto industry. As a finance guy, all my jobs at Ford over 36 years were at the center of supporting these future programs. So, I’m forever keen on auto history and products, which got me into the business, but also excited about emerging technologies.”
Just by working near the famed River Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan, one couldn’t help but become a car historian, Swift said. “The history literally surrounds you—from current facilities to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village—plus fellow employees’ memories.”
Swift, the retired vice president and controller of Ford Motor Co., admits he's a company man through-and-through.
“I’m just a big Ford fan to this day,” he said. “I go to Ford collectors’ events and hang out with the other guys with white hair who love old cars.”
Early Beginnings
Bill Swift started driving cars when he was just eight years old. It wasn’t unusual in post-World War II small town Iowa.
“It was no big deal, it was just what you did,” said Swift.
Early familiarity with stick, clutch, brakes, and tires led to a lifelong love of all things automobile.
His high school job was washing down cars on the lot of a local Ford dealer in Mason City, Iowa. On a trip to Dearborn to pick up a convertible previously owned by a friend of his dad's (it would become the first of Swift's many Fords), he got his first look at the company's massive River Rouge Plant.
“It was just huge; one of the most impactful things I’d seen in my life, and I knew then I wanted to go work there,” Swift recalled.
He almost missed his chance.
Nearing the end of his senior year in business school at the University of Iowa, he knew Ford recruiters were coming to campus right after spring break. However, a tornado outbreak on the west side of the state, including his hometown, forced him to miss the on-campus interviews.
“I collected a bunch of offers from other companies, but my heart was still set on Ford,” Swift said. “Fortunately, late in the cycle when it seemed like everyone else had jobs lined up, they called back and made me an offer.”
Armed with his accounting degree, Swift joined the massive Ford workforce.
“I started at the lowest rung of the ladder, junior grade one accountant,” he said. “Back then it was all paper and pencil and adding machine stuff. The business was very segmented, so you were working on some tiny piece and had no idea how it all fit into the big picture.”
Hawkeye Connections
Ironically, though Ford procured many of its finance and accounting folks from the University of Michigan and Michigan State, it was his Hawkeye ties that gave Swift his first break.
Still in year one and toiling in relative obscurity, one day a secretary rang him up to tell him “Mr. Lundy wants to see you.”
That was J. Edward Lundy (BSC36), an Iowa alum, Clarion, Iowa native, and executive vice president of finance at Ford at the time.
“I raced over to world headquarters, sprinted up 12 flights of stairs, and found out the only reason he called was because he heard I was from Iowa,” Swift chuckled in remembrance. “He asked where I was from and whether I was any good. Apparently, he believed me when I said I was because he told me ‘In three months we’ll have you out of accounting and into financial analysis.’”
Lundy—who after graduating from Iowa was a fellow in economics at Princeton University and widely credited with introducing financial forecasting to Ford—made good on his promise and helped arrange a promotion.
Swift’s trajectory at Ford continued to climb. He held a series of positions in the company’s finance staff until 1977, when he was awarded a Sloan Fellowship to Stanford, where he earned a master’s degree in management. In 1981, he became assistant controller for product analysis. In 1984, he was promoted to project director of business strategy in the Corporate Strategy and Analysis department. In 1999, he was named vice president and controller of Ford Motor Co.
From that position, he was able to pay forward the friendly Iowan boost he received from Lundy to a fellow Hawkeye alum.
DYK? Bill Swift is the 2024 Outstanding Accounting Alum of the Year
“I was heavily involved in recruiting and at the time our HR department drew much of our talent from Michigan and MSU,” he said. “I told them I wanted to go check out the MBA program at Iowa. I went and spent a day, talked to eight or nine folks, and I realized they were just as good as anyone from Michigan.”
Two of those initial recruits accepted Ford jobs and one—John Lawler (MBA90)—is now Ford’s vice chairman and CFO.
“Once I got to Iowa and started talking to students and faculty, I thought ‘these guys are just as good, just as well-trained as UM graduates.’ I think Dean Amy Kristof-Brown is probably the best business school dean in the Big Ten—very creative, forward-thinking, and approachable. I think the way she’s driving the college rubs off on everyone working in that building.”
This article appeared in the 2024 issue of Iowa Ledger.
Photos by Andy Wakeman.