Edsel Ford II

Education

He received his Business Administration Bachelor's Degree at Babson College, and completed the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School in 1981. Edsel attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts and graduated in 1968, from The Gunnery, in Washington, CT, USA before entering Babson.

Career

Between 1978 and 1980 Edsel ran Sales and Marketing at Ford Australia. During his short tenure the Ford Falcon XD was released, and Ford Australia changed their source for smaller cars from Europe to Japan.

As a board member of Ford, Edsel is active in company affairs and corporate dealer relations. He was named president and chief operating officer of Ford Motor Credit Company in 1991, and elected a Ford Vice President in 1993. Edsel is very active in charitable and philanthropic organizations in southeastern Michigan.

Edsel continued his family’s aviation legacy through his own passion for aviation when he purchased Pentastar Aviation in 2001. He is the sole owner of Pentastar Aviation, a complete aviation services company.

Personal life

Ford is married to Cynthia Layne Neskow and they have four sons:

Edsel Ford is the Chairman of the boards of the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan and the Henry Ford Estate - Fair Lane in Dearborn, Michigan. He serves on the board of The Henry Ford. He is currently the Director Emeritus of the Board of Directors at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan and also served on the Board of Trustees for the Skillman Foundation. He was previously Chairman of the National Advisory Board of the Salvation Army and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch. Appointed by then-Mayor Dennis Archer, Ford was the Chairman of Detroit 300, a major civic and philanthropic effort that organized the celebration of the city of Detroit's 300th birthday in 2001. Ford was then appointed as the founding Chairman of the Detroit 300 Conservancy and was instrumental in the development and construction of Campus Martius Park (which the Conservancy continues to maintain).

Ford and his wife live in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

Mr. and Mrs. Ford are long-time supporters of JDRF, the leading global organization funding T1D (type-1 diabetes) research. Their son, Albert, was diagnosed with T1D at the age of 4. Mr. Ford leads the employee-driven Ford Global Action Team, which over the years has raised $58 million for JDRF. Mrs. Ford has served on JDRF’s International Board of Directors and was chair of the JDRF 2009 Children’s Congress, JDRF’s Annual Conference in 2012, and chair of the JDRF Government Relations Committee from 2011 to 2013. In addition to working with leadership in her local JDRF chapter, Mrs. Ford currently serves on JDRF’s Executive Committee and is a leading advocate on Capitol Hill for the renewal of the Special Diabetes Program (SDP), which provides approximately one-third of all federal funding for T1D research. In 2013, Mrs. Ford was honored by JDRF with the Jim Tyree Chairman’s Choice Award for her outstanding volunteer leadership on behalf of people with T1D.

Cynthia Ford is also active in philanthropic initiatives and organizations in Detroit and southeast Michigan. She serves on the boards of the McGregor Fund, Detroit Institute of Arts, Forgotten Harvest, the Belle Isle Conservancy, the Detroit Zoo, Planned Parenthood of Michigan, Children's Hospital of Michigan and Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation, and, along with her husband, The Empowerment Plan. She is also the past President of the Board of Trustees and now an honorary trustee of University Liggett School, an independent, co-ed day school in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan.