Roy Arnold Anderson

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American business executive, board chairman and chief executive officer of Lockheed Aircraft. One of six children, he was raised in the depression era and as the son of a farmer and carpenter, learned respect for hard work. He became a C. P.A. during his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Growing up in the small family community of Ripon in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Anderson and his four older brothers worked summers in neighbors’ fields as well as their own 20-acre farm. An excellent student, particularly in mathematics, he graduated a year ahead of his high school class. The family couldn’t afford college, so he worked and studied bookkeeping for several years until WW II in which he served in the US Navy. During his Navy training as a supply officer, he studied at Kansas State Teachers College and at Tulane and Harvard universities. Following the war, he received his B.A. degree in economics and accounting from Stanford University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He received an M.B.A. degree at the Stanford Business School in 1947, and then became a certified public accountant. His first corporate job was as an accountant with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, beginning in 1952. He then joined the Ampex Instrumentation Products Company. He joined Lockheed in 1956 as a staff accountant. He advanced through the corporation’s ranks, and in 1965 was transferred to the Lockheed-Georgia Company where he was director of finance until appointed treasurer of Lockheed Aircraft in 1968. In 1969, he became a vice president and controller of the corporation, and in 1971, senior vice-president for finance and a member of the board of directors. He was promoted to vice-chairman of the board and chief financial administrative officer in 1975. Meanwhile, Lockheed went through a succession of bankruptcy threats and a bribery scandal that broke in early 1976 and caused chief Lockheed executives to resign. Anderson came through relatively unscathed, apparently the victim of a plan to keep him uninformed. The Lockheed board announced Anderson as their choice for chairman and CEO on 8/02/1977 and he took office following the shareholders meeting in September 1977. Anderson married Betty Boehme on 6/10/1948, and they have four children. Candid, forthcoming and enthusiastic, he led Lockheed through near-fatal crises unparalleled in the history of American business. He died October 18, 2003, peacefully at his home in Los Angeles; age 82.