John Nevin was an accountant and former CEO of Firestone and Zenith. Nevin was an outsider hired to revive a nearly bankrupt Firestone in 1979. He subsequently shook up Akron by moving the corporate headquarters to Chicago in 1987 and then helped engineer the company's sale to Japanese tire maker Bridgestone in 1988. What Nevin was proudest of was that Firestone retirees are still getting pension checks and health benefits because of the tough decisions he had to make. John was also a true family man who believed in education, and who loved to golf with his children and go to his grandchildren's dance and piano recitals. He remembered the hardships the Great Depression had caused his family in his youth, including the loss of a business and home, and he felt at times that his decisions at Firestone to close plants had caused those same hardships for thousands of families. Nevin's career involved much more than running Firestone in Akron: as a teen he worked as a golf caddie in Oakland, Calif., and had a high school job pumping gas at the local Shell station. He also had a summer job as a lifeguard, and he was still a teenager in Navy boot camp when World War II ended. He got an accounting degree from the University of California at Berkeley under the GI Bill. He received an MBA from Harvard and went to work for Standard Oil, then left in 1954 to join Ford Motor Co., where he spent the next 17 years and befriended, among others, Lee Iacocca. He left Ford at the age of 44 to become chief operating officer at Zenith Radio Corp. in Chicago and five years later became Zenith's CEO.
John Nevin was an accountant and former CEO of Firestone and Zenith. Nevin was an outsider hired to revive a nearly bankrupt Firestone in 1979. He subsequently shook up Akron by moving the corporate headquarters to Chicago in 1987 and then helped engineer the company's sale to Japanese tire maker Bridgestone in 1988. What Nevin was proudest of was that Firestone retirees are still getting pension checks and health benefits because of the tough decisions he had to make. John was also a true family man who believed in education, and who loved to golf with his children and go to his grandchildren's dance and piano recitals. He remembered the hardships the Great Depression had caused his family in his youth, including the loss of a business and home, and he felt at times that his decisions at Firestone to close plants had caused those same hardships for thousands of families. Nevin's career involved much more than running Firestone in Akron: as a teen he worked as a golf caddie in Oakland, Calif., and had a high school job pumping gas at the local Shell station. He also had a summer job as a lifeguard, and he was still a teenager in Navy boot camp when World War II ended. He got an accounting degree from the University of California at Berkeley under the GI Bill. He received an MBA from Harvard and went to work for Standard Oil, then left in 1954 to join Ford Motor Co., where he spent the next 17 years and befriended, among others, Lee Iacocca. He left Ford at the age of 44 to become chief operating officer at Zenith Radio Corp. in Chicago and five years later became Zenith's CEO.
Bio by: Joseph Mann
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