Sublime

Sorensen’s “crowning achievement,” Ford historian Ford R. Bryan wrote in 1993, was the “design of the production layout of the mammoth Willow Run Bomber Plant.” Others have cited as Sorensen’s greatest accomplishment his role in the development of mass production.

In engineering work in the drafting room, it was plain to the men to whom he gave his work that he could not make a sketch or read a blueprint. It was to his everlasting credit that, with his limited formal education, his mind worked like a modern electronic calculating machine and he had the answer to what he wanted. The trick was to fathom the de

Sorensen gained Henry Ford’s respect by translating Ford’s design concepts into wooden parts that could be seen and studied. Advancing rapidly, he was second in command of Piquette production by 1907.

Another reason for my long tenure was that I minded my own business. Production—whether it was automobiles, tractors, aviation motors, or B-24 bombers—its planning, installation and supervision was a seven-days-a-week job. I had no time for the outside interests of Henry Ford which arose as he grew older. Labor matters were not in my province. I to

I believe there are three main reasons for my long tenure. One advantage I had over others was that, from my pattern-making days on, I could sense Henry Ford’s ideas and develop them. I didn’t try to change them. This was not subservience. We were pioneering; we didn’t know whether a thing was workable until we tried it. So, Mr. Ford never caught m

Too often the concern of corporation executives about their titles—even size and furnishings of their offices—deflects thought and energy from jobs they are supposed to do. That concern may whet ambition—but with a wrong emphasis. In the absence of a flock of titles, such things didn’t worry us at Ford.

During the nearly forty years I worked for Henry Ford, we never had a quarrel. If we disagreed on policy, or anything else, a quiet discussion settled things. I don’t recall ever receiving a direct order, “I want this done” or “Do it this way.” He got what he wanted by hint or suggestion. He seldom made decisions—in fact, when I brought a matter up

My best friends are my critics. You say, “Why did I not develop a real successor?” Mr. Ford, like many men of his kind, never had a successor, they just can’t acknowledge that such a thing is possible. Was his son even a possible successor? This war program which he, Henry Ford, never entered into, and which he would not take the slightest interest

It was not until I pointed out that we might set new standards in building them that I secured Henry Ford’s consent to make 4,000 Pratt & Whitney engines.