Charles J. Pilliod Jr., who rose from the lowest levels at Goodyear to become its chairman and chief executive officer, and who also served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, died Monday. He was 97.
Mr. Pilliod was born in 1918 in Cuyahoga Falls and hired by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 1941 as a production trainee, making 67 cents an hour. By the time he retired as CEO, his annual salary hit $883,500, making him the highest paid executive in the Akron-Canton region. And he became one of the most powerful men in Akron.
Even though he was exempt from the draft, Mr. Pilliod enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942 and became a B-29 Superfortress bomber pilot in World War II. He flew 15 bombing missions in Japan and China, including the first successful Japanese mainland attack in 1944 after Doolittle’s Raiders’ historic bombing of Tokyo in 1942.
A Fortune magazine story from 1977 said that when Mr. Pilliod visited Japan as a high-level Goodyear executive well after the war, a host asked if he knew a certain Japanese city.
“Would you like me to draw a diagram of it?” Mr. Pilliod replied. “I bombed it.” The host, Mr. Pilliod recalled, “got a big kick out of” his response.
Mr. Pilliod rejoined Goodyear in 1945. He served in the Air Force Reserve from 1945 to 1964.
Mr. Pilliod worked in a number of positions in 10 foreign nations and then in Akron for Goodyear. He was promoted to president of Goodyear in July 1972, then to CEO in January 1974. He became the fourth board chairman in the company’s history in April 1974. He retired as CEO and chairman from Goodyear in 1983 and retired as a director in 1986. During his tenure as CEO, Goodyear was the world’s largest rubber company.
He was described as a smart, tough and a “finger-thumping” demanding boss who was sometimes difficult to get along with. He often liked to get involved in the smallest of details.
“ ... He’s got a good reason to be egotistical,” former Goodyear executive Dick Jay told Fortune magazine. “He’s come a long way from less than a standing start. We’re all pretty much in awe of him.”
Fitness fanatic
Fortune’s profile said Mr. Pilliod was a fitness fanatic who, at age 58, woke at 5 a.m. to lift weights, use a rowing machine and do other exercises before getting to the office at 7:30. He was a former high school athlete who played guard for the football team and was undefeated in wrestling.
Mr. Pilliod kept up his piloting skills and was said to often pilot Goodyear’s Sabreliner aircraft — and on occasion a Goodyear blimp.
President Ronald Reagan appointed him as ambassador to Mexico in 1986. He served in that post into 1989.
Mr. Pilliod became head of one of the nation’s largest corporations without ever getting a college degree.
He attended, but did not graduate from, Muskingum College and Kent State University. He dropped out of Muskingum to help care for his mother while she recovered from a heart attack. He then enrolled at Kent State but subsequently dropped out. He worked part-time jobs while taking a full load of courses at both schools.
Mr. Pilliod also attended Northwestern’s Institute for Management. He had honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Kent State, Muskingum and Eastern Kentucky University. He was a trustee at the University of Akron, Mount Union College and Muskingum.
Mr. Pilliod helped push Goodyear from making old technology bias-ply tires to modern radial tire production.
He also was head of the company during some of its most tumultuous times. He butted heads with the United Rubber Workers, including during a 4 ½-month industrywide strike in 1976. He led Goodyear during the historic decline of the rubber industry in Akron.
He was among Akron’s business movers and shakers who formed the Akron Priority Group in 1979 to push for significant city projects, including the rebuilding of downtown.
In 1978, Mr. Pilliod shuttered Goodyear’s Plant 2, which made obsolete bias-ply tires in Akron, putting 1,200 people out of work. Mr. Pilliod then converted the multistory building into what is now Goodyear’s Akron Innovation Center and also home to the company’s NASCAR race tire production.
Industry’s demise
Mr. Pilliod expressed regret over the demise of Akron’s rubber industry.
“Having been born and raised here — and I’d say the same of Eddie Thomas and (former Goodyear Chairman) Russ DeYoung — none of us had any good feeling about the exit of the rubber industry from Akron,” Mr. Pilliod said in the Akron Beacon Journal series (and subsequent book) Wheels of Fortune. “I think you’d find the same is true of Jerry O’Neil (former General chairman). We were all local boys, and we were very interested in seeing things stay here.”
In 1972, Queen Elizabeth of England awarded him Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He also received two awards of merit from Luxembourg, one from Belgium and two from Brazil, including that nation’s highest award for a noncitizen.
Goodyear has endowed scholarship funds in Mr. Pilliod’s name at Kent State University. The university also hosts the Pilliod Lecture Series, which features business professionals.
He was a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a founder member of the Business Roundtable.
Mr. Pilliod was also involved in other businesses after leaving Goodyear and was part of a high-level investment firm, AEA Investors Inc., whose members included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and retired CEOs of General Motors, IBM and Eaton Corp.
He and his late wife, Marie Elizabeth, who died in 1985, had three sons, Charles J. III, Mark Alan, and Stephen Matthew; and two daughters, Renee Elizabeth and Christine Marie. He is survived by his second wife, Nancy.
Billow Fairlawn Chapel is handling arrangements, which were incomplete as of late Tuesday afternoon.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter.