Romney, George Wilcken (1907–1995)

US business executive and state governor. He was president and chair of American Motors Corporation 1954–62, and as a moderate Republican governor of Michigan 1963–69 he supported civil rights legislation while putting the state on a sound financial basis.

He was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, the son of US Mormon missionaries. He went to the USA at the age of five and attended the University of Utah and George Washington University. He started as a sales manager with the Aluminum Company in 1930. In 1964 he had refused to support the conservative Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater; he was regarded as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 1968 until he committed a gaffe by stating that the US leaders in Vietnam tried to ‘brainwash’ him. President Nixon nevertheless appointed him secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1969. He later headed the National Center for Voluntary Action and held high positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.