Personal Life
Patterson attended Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1867. He was something of a health fanatic, and adopted one regimen after another, most of which were required of his executives and employees. While at Miami, Patterson was a member of Beta Theta Pi.
Patterson lived in his Swiss chalet estate "The Far Hills" in Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio. Patterson loved the Adirondacks and built his summer estate on Beaver Lake in New York. His family built two other estates on the lake. All three estates still exist, two as church camps, one as private bed and breakfast.
John Patterson is also renowned as a case book example of an individual who demonstrated a clear need for total control of everything around him. Following is an excerpt from a 2009 article in Portfolio.com, declaring Patterson then ninth worst American CEO of all time:
The tyrannical Patterson liked to fire and then rehire executives to break their self-esteem. He banned “harmful” foods—including bread and butter—from company premises and had employees weighed and measured every six months. In 1913, he and 29 NCR officials were convicted of various antitrust violations, including the use of “knockout men” to intimidate store owners and keep them from buying from NCR’s competitors. (The conviction was overturned a year later.) Patterson may be best known for firing Thomas Watson, who went on to build IBM.
Rumors of abusive behavior in his personal life were rife in tabloids of the time, and thus may be exaggerated. One such claim implied he frequently choked women in his personal life. The book The Two-Edged Sword by William H. Hampton and Virginia S. Burnham details Patterson's abusive behavior, suggests a possible mental illness, classified Patterson as a paranoid.
Read more about this topic: John Henry Patterson (NCR Owner)
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