LAFF Society

NEWSLETTER

Ford, the Early Years

 

 

 
 
A history of the Foundation’s first three decades has been written by two long-time Ford staff and current LAFF members.
 
A Memoir of The Ford Foundation: The Early Years 1936-1968, written by Verne S. Atwater and Evelyn C. Walsh, has been described as a “detailed and lively” account written in “compelling prose”. The authors’ “firsthand knowledge of the Foundation’s early years makes them the ideal writers to chronicle the triumphs and challenges of this world-changing organization.”  
 
Atwater was a college professor and banker before joining the Foundation in 1958, and later became its first representative in Latin America. He then became administrative vice president and director of the Latin America program.
 
After he left Ford in 1968 he spent ten years as chairman and CEO of Central Savings Bank in New York City He then taught finance at Pace University and was acting dean of its Lubin School of Business. He retired in 2002 and now lives in Amherst, New Hampshire.
 
Walsh worked at the Foundation from 1956 through 1969 in the Asia and Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean programs. Now a published poet living in New York City, she was added to Who’s Who of American Women in 1981 and chosen for the YWCA’s Academy of Women Achievers. 
 
The book was published by Vantage Press and is available at bookstores and online.

 

 

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