Bill Ford

Bill Ford strode to the podium at Ford Motor Co.'s auditorium Tuesday to thunderous applause, an American flag at either side of the stage, with stars-and-stripes designs on the walls. Employees, packed well beyond the room's 470-seat capacity, gave the fresh-faced 44-year-old a raucous standing ovation. "Gee, it's like the Lions won a game," Ford quipped, referring to the forlorn 0-6 record of the Detroit professional football team his family owns. So began William Clay Ford Jr.'

Ford Motor Co. paid Chief Executive Alan Mulally $21 million last year, down from $29.5 million in the previous year because the company didn't meet all of its financial goals. Most companies don't like to talk about what they pay their top executives, but Ford annually issues a news release detailing the compensation of its management team. Mulally earned $2 million in salary and an additional $4 million in a cash bonus in 2012. His total compensation includes the grant date value of long-term stock options and other performance-based equity awards.

Less than five years after taking the helm of the company founded by his great-grandfather, William Clay Ford Jr. said Monday that he was handing the keys to Ford Motor Co. to an executive with no experience selling cars. Alan Mulally, who is credited with turning around Boeing Co.'s struggling commercial airliner business, will take over as chief executive of Ford, effective immediately.

Moody's Investors Service raised the credit rating of Ford Motor Co. to an investment grade, giving its seal of approval to a corporate turnaround of the business that started with heavy borrowing at the end of 2006. The move Tuesday returns control of the automaker's famous "Blue Oval" logo back to Ford. The logo, with the Ford name written in distinctive script, was first seen on a Model A in 1928 and was pledged as collateral to obtain the loans. Moody's raised its assessment of the creditworthiness of Ford's automotive operations to Baa3, up from Ba2. Ford Motor Credit Co., the automaker's finance arm, now has a rating of Baa3, up from Ba1. The investment rating is an important measure of corporate health and will reduce the automaker's borrowing expenses.

Ford Motor Co. paid Chief Executive Alan Mulally $21 million last year, down from $29.5 million in the previous year because the company didn't meet all of its financial goals. Most companies don't like to talk about what they pay their top executives, but Ford annually issues a news release detailing the compensation of its management team. Mulally earned $2 million in salary and an additional $4 million in a cash bonus in 2012. His total compensation includes the grant date value of long-term stock options and other performance-based equity awards.

Some people underestimate Alan Mulally when they first meet him. Ford Motor Co.'s 66-year-old chief executive, who grew up in Kansas and once aspired to be an astronaut, looks and sometimes acts like an overgrown Boy Scout. He laces his speech with words such as "neat," "cool" and "absolutely. " But the farm-boy exterior conceals one of business' toughest, most ruthless managers. When a desperate Bill Ford recruited Mulally from Boeing in 2006, Ford was heading for a $12.7-billion loss and on the verge of losing its No. 2 sales spot in the U.S. to Toyota because of poor management and an uninspiring vehicle lineup.

Ford Motor Co. Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. sold 1 million shares for an average of $5.05 each, according to a U.S. regulatory filing. Bill Ford, 51, sold the shares to retire debt incurred in exercising stock options, a company spokesman said. The chairman, who was chief executive from October 2001 to September 2006, declined a salary during that period and received stock options instead. Bill Ford now directly holds 4,956,971 common shares, according to the filing. Accounting for the 398,920 shares held indirectly, the sale represents 16% of his common shares.

Assistant director Bill Ford makes the Orange County Health Care Agency sound like a bunch of moronic bureaucrats in the Nov. 9 article "Inspections but No Grades for O.C. Eateries." Ford maintains that grades should not be posted in windows because the grade isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of conditions at any given time. It's better to see the results of the inspection, and surely would motivate restaurateurs to keep their places cleaner and healthier. N.H. PETERSON Laguna Beach

Ford Motor Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford received total compensation of $13.3 million in 2005, down 40% from the previous year after the automaker's North American division lost more than $1 billion, according to a proxy statement filed Friday. Bill Ford said last May that he would take no salary, bonus or other awards until the company's automotive operations return to profitability.

Ford Motor Co. was sputtering badly at the end of World War II. But it managed to come roaring back as founder Henry Ford's grandson, Henry II, took over the company and rallied it under the slogan "There's a Ford in Your Future." The question now is whether William Clay "Bill" Ford Jr., great-grandson of the original Henry and nephew of Henry II, can bring the company back once again. Some doubt it.

Some people underestimate Alan Mulally when they first meet him. Ford Motor Co.'s 66-year-old chief executive, who grew up in Kansas and once aspired to be an astronaut, looks and sometimes acts like an overgrown Boy Scout. He laces his speech with words such as "neat," "cool" and "absolutely. " But the farm-boy exterior conceals one of business' toughest, most ruthless managers. When a desperate Bill Ford recruited Mulally from Boeing in 2006, Ford was heading for a $12.7-billion loss and on the verge of losing its No. 2 sales spot in the U.S. to Toyota because of poor management and an uninspiring vehicle lineup.

Ford Motor Co. has made what it pays its top executives about as transparent as any company in America. While many public companies hide their executive compensation data in the fine print of regulatory filings, Ford simply put out a news release that outlined what the bosses were making in fairly simple terms. It also filed the information with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Alan Mulally, the former Boeing executive credited with helping Ford avoid the bankruptcy reorganizations and federal bailouts that sustained General Motors and Chrysler during the recession, earned $29.5 million in total compensation last year.

Ford Motor Co. announced on Thursday a series of senior management changes but gave no hint to who might succeed Alan Mulally as the automaker's next chief executive. Lewis Booth, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Derrick Kuzak, group vice president, Global Product Development, have elected to retire effective April 1. Each has served the automaker for more than 30 years and at times have been mentioned as possible successors to Mulally. Booth, 63, will be succeeded by Bob Shanks, who is currently vice president and controller. Kuzak, 60, will be succeeded by Raj Nair, who is currently vice president of engineering, global product development.

Ford Motor Co. earned the most money in more than a decade last year, and that has triggered a big payday for the automaker's top executives. Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally received stock worth $56.5 million before taxes, the company said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings Monday. The dollar figure is based on the closing price of Ford's shares March 3, a company spokesman said. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. was awarded stock worth $42.4 million. Mulally, a former Boeing Co. senior executive, is credited with turning Ford around and keeping it solvent when General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group both filed for bankruptcy and survived only because of massive government bailouts.

Ford Motor Co. Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. sold 1 million shares for an average of $5.05 each, according to a U.S. regulatory filing. Bill Ford, 51, sold the shares to retire debt incurred in exercising stock options, a company spokesman said. The chairman, who was chief executive from October 2001 to September 2006, declined a salary during that period and received stock options instead. Bill Ford now directly holds 4,956,971 common shares, according to the filing. Accounting for the 398,920 shares held indirectly, the sale represents 16% of his common shares.

It is better to have had Love and lost him than to have never had Love at all. Michael Jameson Valencia -- Kevin Love disappointed this Bruins fan at his news conference with what I consider an egotistical attitude. Did I hear him state he wants to leave a legacy at UCLA like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and Jackie Robinson? One major difference. It is impossible to leave a legacy unless you first create a legacy. Bill Ford Orange -- So the UCLA football players decided to defy their new coach in the name of tradition and go "over the wall."

In a sharp shift of strategy, Ford Motor Co. plans to focus less on hybrid technology and more on a wider range of alternatives to traditional gasoline-powered engines, Ford Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. told the automaker's employees. The CEO backed away from a commitment made last fall to build production capacity for 250,000 hybrid vehicles by the end of the decade, calling that goal "too narrow" in a companywide e-mail message Wednesday. The No. 2 U.S.

Ford Motor Co. posted a third-quarter loss of $284 million Thursday -- its first deficit in nearly two years -- and warned that it would probably announce additional layoffs and plant closings in January to shore up its ailing North American auto unit. The automaker, which lost $13 million a day in North America during the quarter, is hurting from a consumer shift away from its gas-guzzling SUVs, lofty labor expenses, rising materials costs and excess factory capacity.

Less than five years after taking the helm of the company founded by his great-grandfather, William Clay Ford Jr. said Monday that he was handing the keys to Ford Motor Co. to an executive with no experience selling cars. Alan Mulally, who is credited with turning around Boeing Co.'s struggling commercial airliner business, will take over as chief executive of Ford, effective immediately.