Harry Gray (business)

Harry Jack Gray (born 1919 or 1920) is an American business manager and philanthropist, best known as CEO and chairman of United Technologies.

He was born in Georgia. His mother died when he was six years old, and his father relocated them to Chicago, Illinois. The father's business failed when he was eight, and he financed his college education at the University of Illinois with multiple jobs that included washing dishes, waiting tables, and stoking a boarding-house furnace.

He graduated with a journalism degree in 1941, and immediately joined the U.S. Army. His service included a year in the U.S. and three and a half years overseas during World War II. He received the Silver Star and was discharged as a captain.

Gray resumed his studies at U of I, completing a master's degree, with high honors, in 1947. He worked in advertising and sales until joining Consolidated Electro Dynamics in 1954. That company grew in annual sales from $1 million to $20 billion and changed its name to Litton Industries by the time he left its employ in 1971.

He left Litton to become president, chief administrative officer, and a member of the board of directors of United Aircraft. He was named chief executive officer the next year, then also served as chairman of UA and its successor United Technologies Corporation, from 1974 until retiring in 1986.

Since that retirement, he has served as chairman and CEO of Harry Gray Associates, which participated with Shawmut National Venture in the 1993 buyout of Mott Metallurgical Corporation.

As of 2003, Gray is also chairman of the boards of both Mott Corporation and SourceOne .

Mr. Gray was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2003.

References

* [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/080886a.htm Appointment of Harry Jack Gray as a Member of the President's Commission on Executive Exchange] at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library