William Clay Ford, Jr.'s Quotes

As long as gas is cheaper than bottled water, we can't be in a position of dictating to the consumer what to buy.

One cannot find a healthy economy anywhere in the world that does not have a strong industrial base, period.

All things being equal, I think people would still prefer to do business with their hometown companies. That's true in America, that's true in China, that's true in Germany.

I believe very strongly that corporations could and should be a major force for resolving social and environmental concerns in the twenty-first century.

I don't care where you are in the world, people are aware of what technology is available to others. If you're in Nairobi, you're certainly aware of the iPhone.

I never wanted Ford to be a place, like the tobacco industry, where our employees were not proud of coming to work for us. I felt there was a danger of that, should we be marginalized as a major polluter.

I think I was the first executive to ever speak at a Greenpeace business conference, in London in 2001. That didn't play well here at Ford, but I thought it was an important signal to send internally, that these were the kind of issues we needed to be grappling with.

There is a great demand everywhere in the world for individual mobility. People like the fact they are not on somebody else's schedule. They can come and go as they please.

When I joined Ford, in the late 1970s, I felt strongly we could not forever be a huge user of natural resources without there being consequences. But I was alone in my thinking in those days.