John Bugas

John Bugas

Jack Bugas was the second in command at Ford Motor Company during the presidency and chairmanship reign of Henry Ford II. He is best known for wresting control of the company from Harry Bennett following the death of Edsel Ford. Bugas worked for years to help retire his father’s debts, including quitting school at the age of 16 for two years.

About John Bugas in brief

Summary John BugasJack Bugas was the second in command at Ford Motor Company during the presidency and chairmanship reign of Henry Ford II. He is best known for wresting control of the company from Harry Bennett following the death of Edsel Ford. Bugas worked for years to help retire his father’s debts, including quitting school at the age of 16 for two years when his father placed him in charge of a road construction crew. He graduated cum laude from college and law school in 1934, and went to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation the following spring. By 1938 J. Edgar Hoover appointed him head of the FBI’s Detroit office, a strategically very important position as at the time Michigan counted heavily in the national defense plans. He notably led the quashing of two Nazi spy rings and personally captured Enemy Number One Tom Robinson at gunpoint. In 1944, Bugas left public service to join Ford Motor company, still deeply shaken by the kidnapping of his friend Lindbergh, but would remain close friends and friends with Hoover until Hoover’s death in 1972. The Bugas family originated from Austria. Andrew Bugas immigrated to the United States in 1882 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen at age 26 in 1891. Andrew and Helena Bugas married in 1902 and from 1903 to 1929 had a total of eight sons and two daughters. The parents of Jack Bugas, Andrew P. Bugas and Helena L.Bugas, were both born in Austria, and moved to Wamsutter, Wyoming, in 1909.

The family moved to Wyoming in 1909, and Andrew opened the first agency for the Continental Oil Company, operated a small hotel and post office, ran a roadConstruction and trucking company, and developed a family ranch he would name the Eagle’s Nest. When he was in his early teens, his father’s debts forced the family to mortgage the Eagle”s Nest. The tall, rangy Bugas ) was a \”star forward\” for four years on Willard Witte’s University of Wyoming basketball team ), and was also on the baseball and track & field teams and a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He would later say that as a child he would punch cows for entertainment. He never wore shoes or ate candy until he was 14, and when he found me under the bed at the house, I had chewed half-way through one of the hob-nail boots because I thought it was candy. So 10 days later, I ran out a mile from the ranch house to meet him and he tossed me a couple of packages. He later recalled standing with his father outside the Eagle Nest house weeping as they burned the paid-off note. He later said that the experience was “the hardest and most important in his life” and “what gave him confidence and taught him self-reliance” Bugas later said he would never wear shoes or candy again.