MANAGEMENT: The Forgotten Men

The grateful directors of the Hupp Corp. last week voted a $110,000 bonus to Board Chairman John O. Ekblom, 64, on top of his $42,000 salary, for the crack job he did in pulling the company out of the red. To the directors’ surprise, Ekblom turned down the bonus, saying that his salary “satisfies my needs and my appetite.” He suggested that the money be used for incentive bonuses for Hupp’s executives, who need it far more. Said Ekblom: “I want to focus some attention on the country’s forgotten man—the corporation executive paid around $20,000 a year. After taxes and educating his children and perhaps one major illness, he reaches the age of 55 without saving a penny. There is something wrong with the system when a man does everything he should do and still ends up in that spot.” Ekblom has not ended up in that spot because Hupp is only one of his interests. The son of an immigrant cabinetmaker, Ekblom went to work after grammar school, earned enough money to set up an auto repair shop at 16, became a self-taught expert in economics, accounting, corporate law and management. He turned his hand to selling cars and several other businesses, became a corporate doctor for sick companies, opened a Wall Street brokerage firm. Five years ago he bought 6% of the shares of Hupp at a time when the onetime automaker’s gross was only $10 million a year and the loss $99-799-To Hupp’s business of making automotive parts. Ekblom added appliance, air-conditioning and heating-equipment companies, boosted sales to $56.5 million last year and profits to $1,005,090.

From all his ventures, Ekblom says that he has “sufficient wealth to provide for my family when I am no longer needed in industry.” But many another executive has no such security. Says Ekblom: “I don’t know the solution. Maybe the men in Washington who make up the tax schedule can do something about it.”