Room at the Top

Like the company he heads, William M. Agee is self-assured.

Bendix Corp., the Michigan-based manufacturer of automotive and aircraft parts, housebuilding materials, metalworking tools and many other things, is a nononsense, tightly reined outfit. It made money throughout the recession and stacked up just under $3 billion in sales last fiscal year. Agee, who was named the company's chairman last December after Michael Blumenthal was selected to be Jimmy Carter's Treasury Secretary, is a tested and talented manager and financial man--as he tells anyone who asks. Practically the only thing he is touchy about is his age: businessmen, Wall Streeters and journalists often remark how unusual it is for a 39-year-old to run a company so huge. "Look," says Agee, "there aren't a lot of people who have had--at whatever age --the top management responsibility and deep involvement that I have had."

The sandy-haired son of a farmer from Boise, Idaho, Agee was a skinny but skilled jock in high school. He started at Stanford but married after his freshman year and transferred to Boise Junior College, then to the University of Idaho and finally to Harvard Business School.

The Harvard M.B.A. (class of '63) also helped land him a job with Boise Cascade, the Idaho-headquartered forest-products company, which was growing rapidly. After four years, Agee was company treasurer; two years later, he was vice president and chief financial officer and pulled down the corporation's third biggest paycheck. Nothing was left but to take over the top job, but it was clearly predestined for John Fery, then executive vice president.

Rapid Rise. In 1971 Blumenthal of Bendix decided to set up an "office of the chief executive," consisting of himself and three executive vice presidents. Early the next year, a head-hunter was dispatched to offer Agee one of the second-rank spots. Agee, impressed by Blumenthal's intellect and rapid rise from refugee to corporate leader, accepted. "I brought more business experience to the table than Blumenthal had," Agee says unblinkingly. At Bendix, Agee helped to install what he calls "early-warning systems" in budgetary planning to forestall "unpleasant surprises." He joined Blumenthal in leaning hard on lower-level executives to meet high profit goals. By December 1976, the boss was so impressed that he abolished the troika of No. 2 men and anointed Agee president. Only two weeks later, Blumenthal got Carter's call and Agee became chairman.

Right after his ascension, Agee told high-ranking Bendix executives of his plans to "amplify and intensify" Blumenthal's business strategies--which last year prompted Dun's Review, the financial journal, to name Bendix one of the U.S.'s five best-managed companies. Blumenthal's genius for timing and selecting acquisitions and divestitures made Bendix splendidly diverse in both product lines and plant locations, and hence more immune than most companies to downturns. When Detroit faltered in 1975, and demand fell for Bendix's new-car brakes and other parts, the company did fine: drivers still needed the company's Fram oil filters and Autolite spark plugs. Bendix's sales almost doubled between 1971 and 1976, and last year's earnings of $105 million were 31% higher than those of 1975.

Outer Limit. Since joining Bendix, Agee has forsworn most community activities in favor of family recreation. He gave up downhill schussing, lest an accident keep him away from the board room, but enjoys cross-country skiing with Wife Diane and their three children near their home in McCall, Idaho. Agee admits to fighting the temptation to take a "systems approach" to his kids --"sitting them down and saying, 'All right, in the next half-hour we're going to take care of all the things that are on your mind' "--but he has already given some hard analytic thought to top-level personnel issues at Bendix. He wants to expand the uppermost management team, and has also, within a month of becoming chairman, started thinking about his own successor. Agee feels that chief executives outlive their usefulness after "ten to 15 years--perhaps that's the outer limit." But in 15 years, Bill Agee will be only 54. He is not likely to take up knitting.

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