Early Life and Business Career
Peek was born in Polo, Illinois, on November 19, 1873. His father was a farmer. He attended Northwestern University from 1891 to 1892, but did not graduate.
He joined the Deere & Webber Company of Minneapolis in 1893, and was named Vice President of the John Deere Plow manufacturing division in Omaha, Nebraska in 1901. In 1911, he was named President of the Deere & Co. subsidiary in Moline, Illinois. In 1919, he left Deere & Co. and became President of the Moline Plow Company, where he earned the relatively large salary of $100,000 a year. He immediately hired retired Brigadier General Hugh Samuel Johnson as the company's general counsel. Peek and Johnson were deeply interested in farm economics, especially since the post-World War I recession. Peek and Johnson became strong advocates of the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, proposed federal legislation which would have established the first national system of price supports for agriculture.
Peek was a member of the War Industries Board during World War I, and after the war was a member of the Industrial Board advising the United States Department of Commerce on post-war reconversion.
Read more about this topic: George Peek
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, business and/or career:
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“I think that New York is not the cultural center of America, but the business and administrative center of American culture.”
—Saul Bellow (b. 1915)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)