Thomas Victor Jones (July 21, 1920 – January 7, 2014) was an American businessman. He served as the chairman and chief executive officer of Northrop Corporation.

Biography

Early life

Born in Pomona, California, he graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

in engineering from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Career

He went to work at

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

in 1942. He worked for the Brazilian Air Ministry to create the Aeronautical Institute of Technology from 1947 to 1951. Around 1953 he went to work for the

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...

where he published a study on transport planes for the U.S. Air Force. That same year he joined Northrop as assistant to the chief engineer, rose to be the president in 1959, chief executive officer in 1960 and chairman of the board in 1963. He was on the cover of '' Time'' magazine on October 27, 1961. He received the AIAA "Reed Aeronautics Award" in 1985 and the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy of the National Aeronautic Association in 1989. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1999. In May 1974 he pled guilty to making illegal corporate donations to the Committee to Re-elect the President and resigned from many of his non-Northrop positions including trustee of Stanford University. He retired as chief executive of Northrop in 1989 after being reprimanded by the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

for his role in a

bribery Bribery is the Offer and acceptance, offering, Gift, giving, Offer and acceptance, receiving, or Solicitation, soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With reg ...

scandal surrounding the marketing the

F-20 The Northrop F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) is a light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop's F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performa ...

fighter to South Korea.

Personal life

He was married to Ruth Jones, who died in July 2013.Official website: History
They had two children, Peter Thomas and Ruth Marilyn. In 1959, Jones and his wife purchased

Moraga Estate Moraga Estate is an American estate, vineyard and winery in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. As of 2013, it was owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Overview The estate included a 7,500-square-foot, nine-fireplace Mediterranean Revival–style m ...

in Bel Air, Los Angeles, formerly owned by film director

Victor Fleming Victor Lonzo Fleming (February 23, 1889 – January 6, 1949) was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'', for which he won an Academy Award for Best ...

(1889-1949).Meg James
Yet while Ruth and Thomas were living in this fine home. Ruth Marilyn adopts to girls. Annie Jones and Rosemary Jones. They spend years enjoying the company of the vineyard. After Thomas had fallen ill Ruth Marilyn and Peter Thomas had to help sell the vineyard. Rupert Murdoch buys Moraga Vineyards estate in Bel Air
'' The Los Angeles Times'', May 10, 2013S. Irene Virbila
Moraga Vineyards in Bel Air for sale
''The Los Angeles Times'', February 08, 2013Dan Berger
Moraga Vineyards: Appellation Controlee Bel Air
''The Los Angeles Times'', January 09, 1992Tim Fish
Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch Buys Moraga Vineyards
''

Wine Spectator ''Wine Spectator'' is an American lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture, and gives out ratings to certain types of wine. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertain ...

'', May 13, 2013Charles Lewis Sullivan, ''A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine and Winemaking from the Mission Period to the Present'', Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1998, p. 22

/ref> They turned the estate into a vineyard, by planting a terraced vineyard in 1978. In 2013, it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of the News Corporation, after he saw an advertisement in a newspaper he owns, '' The Wall Street Journal''. On January 7, 2014, Thomas V. Jones died of pulmonary fibrosis at his home in Los Angeles. He was 93.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Thomas Victor American aerospace engineers American chief executives of manufacturing companies Businesspeople in aviation 1920 births 2014 deaths National Aviation Hall of Fame inductees Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Northrop Grumman people Stanford University alumni Stanford University trustees American winemakers Businesspeople from Los Angeles Deaths from pulmonary fibrosis People from Bel Air, Los Angeles People from Pomona, California 20th-century American businesspeople Engineers from California American expatriates in Brazil