Owen D. Young - Biography

Biography

Owen D. Young was born in 1874 in Stark, Herkimer County, New York. An 1894 graduate of St. Lawrence University, he completed the three-year law course at Boston University in two years, graduating cum laude in 1896. After graduation he joined lawyer Charles H. Tyler and ten years later became a partner in that Boston law firm. They were involved in litigation cases between major companies. He became a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity while at college (Sigma Tau chapter).

Young represented Stone and Webster in a successful case against GE around 1911 and through that case came to the attention of Charles A. Coffin, the first president of General Electric. After the death of GE's General Counsel Hinsdill Parsons in April 1912, Coffin invited Young to become the company's Chief Counsel and Young moved to Schenectady. He became GE's president in 1922 and then in the same year was appointed inaugural chairman, serving in that position until 1939. Under his guidance and teaming with president Gerard Swope, GE shifted into the extensive manufacturing of home electrical appliances, establishing the company as a leader in this field and speeding the mass electrification of farms, factories and transportation systems within the US.

In 1919, at the request of the government, he created the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to combat threatened foreign control of America's struggling radio industry. He became its augumentation chairman and served in that position until 1929, helping to establish America's lead in the burgeoning technology of radio.

In the mid-1920s he helped found the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). In 1928, he was appointed to the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation under a major reorganization of that institution, serving on that board also up to 1939.

Young's participation in President Woodrow Wilson's Second Industrial Conference following World War I marked the beginning of his counseling of five U.S. presidents. In 1924, he coauthored the Dawes Plan, which provided for a reduction in the annual amount of German reparations. In the late 1920s investments fell, and Germany again defaulted on its payments. In 1929 a new international body met to consider a program for the final release of German obligations; Young acted as chairman. Germany's total reparations were reduced and spread over 59 annual payments. After establishing this "Young Plan", Young was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1929. Unfortunately, the Young Plan collapsed with the coming of the Great Depression.

Young was also instrumental in plans for a state university system in New York.

In 1932, he was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination which went to Franklin Roosevelt instead.

Mr. Young was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1981.