Gerald Lynch; Former Chief of Ford’s Aerospace Division
Gerald J. Lynch, the attorney and manufacturing executive chosen to move Ford Motor Co. from tanks and military vehicles into aerospace defense products in the 1950s, has died. He was 89.
Lynch, who had continued to work as a management consultant until recently, died Thursday in Pasadena.
In 1956, Lynch, then a Ford vice president, was tapped to organize its partially owned aerospace subsidiary, Aeronutronic Systems Inc., in Southern California and serve as its president. Lynch got the assignment partly because of his ability to deal with government and defense leaders and partly because of his adventurous, adaptive mind.
“I don’t mind getting picked off first base once in a while,” he put it in a 1961 Times interview.
Lynch left Ford and Aeronutronic Systems in 1962 to become chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Menasco Manufacturing Co., which later merged into Colt Industries.
He served on President Ronald Reagan’s Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and was president and board chairman of the National Security Industrial Assn., headquartered in Washington, D.C.
In Southern California, he chaired the board of trustees of Don Bosco Technical Institute in Rosemead.
Active in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Lynch served on its development council and its trusts and estates board. He was a past president of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Los Angeles and earned its medallion of merit for his service. He was knighted by the Order of St. Gregory and in 1992 received a Cardinal’s Award from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.
Educated at the University of Detroit, Lynch began his career practicing law in that city. During World War II, he worked for General Motors as head of its war contract administration department. He moved to Ford in 1946.
Lynch is survived by his second wife, Carmela; five children, Gerald Jr. and Terence Lynch, RoseMary Korostoff, Laura Lee Foley and Julie Russell, and 12 grandchildren.
Funeral liturgy will be celebrated at St. Andrew’s Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the St. Andrew’s Church Restoration Fund, the Don Bosco Technical Institute or Huntington Memorial Hospital.
