Robert Chase Townsend (July 30, 1920 – January 12, 1998) was an American business executive and author who is noted for transforming Avis into a rental car giant.

Biography

Townsend was born in Washington, D.C. in 1920. His parents moved to

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincorpo ...

where he spent his childhood. After high school, he was accepted to

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, graduating in 1942. After graduating from college, he was commissioned as an

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," f ...

in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, serving for the remainder of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. After the war, he was hired by American Express in 1948. By the time he left the company, he was the senior vice president for investment and international banking. In 1962, Lazard Frères bought Avis, a struggling auto rental company that had never made a profit in its existence. One of the partners,

André Meyer André Benoît Mathieu Meyer (September 3, 1898 – September 9, 1979) was a French-American investment banker. Biography Meyer was born to a low-income Jewish family in Paris. As a boy, he began following the workings of the stock market and ...

, convinced Townsend to leave American Express and become CEO of Avis. Under his direction as president and chairman, the firm became a credible force in the industry, fueled by the "We Try Harder" advertising campaign (1962–65). Avis also began to have profits, which Townsend credited to

Theory Y Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human work motivation and management. They were created by Douglas McGregor while he was working at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1950s, and developed further in the 1960s. McGregor's work was root ...

governance. In 1965, ITT acquired Avis, leading to Townsend's departure as president. After leaving Avis, he became a senior partner of Congressional Monitor in 1969. The company was later renamed Washington Monitor, Leadership Directories (1995-2018), and Leadership Connect (2019-). He wrote the widely acclaimed essay on business management, ''Up the Organization'', which spent 28 weeks on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list upon its publication in 1970. In 1990, Townsend had to have

triple bypass Coronary artery bypass surgery, also known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG, pronounced "cabbage") is a surgical procedure to treat coronary artery disease (CAD), the buildup of plaques in the arteries of the heart. It can relieve chest pai ...

surgery. During the late 1990s, he was the chairman of the executive committee of Leadership Directories. On January 12, 1998, he was vacationing in

Anguilla Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The terr ...

. While telling a fishing story on a

ketch A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch fr ...

, he had a massive heart attack leading to his death. Townsend was married to Joan Tours. He had three daughters, executive and attorney Claire Townsend (1952–1995), the actress Jill (b. 1945) and Joan, as well as two sons, Jeffrey and Robert Jr.

Bibliography

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References

External links

Paging Robert Townsend
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Portrait of Robert Townsend, 1970.

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Townsend, Robert 1920 births 1998 deaths American chief executives 20th-century American writers 20th-century American male writers United States Navy personnel of World War II