Dollar-a-year men

A number of top executives in large businesses and governments have worked for an annual salary of one dollar.

The "Dollar-a-year men" were business and government executives who helped the government mobilize and manage American industry during periods of war, especially World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. U.S. law forbids the government from accepting the services of unpaid volunteers. Those employed by the government had to be paid a nominal salary, and the salary establishes their legal relationship as employees of the government. For example, Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller, wealthy in his own right, served in several government positions on such terms. Kentucky’s Ashland Oil and Refining Company founder and CEO, Paul G. Blazer (1890–1966), served twice as a government salaried dollar-a-year man: from 1933 to 1935 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration on the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry as Chairman of the Blazer Committee and a second time during World War II as Chairman of District II Refining for President Roosevelt’s Petroleum Administration of War. During World War II, socialite Doris Duke worked in a canteen for U.S. sailors in Egypt at such a salary.

In Canada during World War II, C. D. Howe, Canada's "Minister of Everything", created a rearmament program using "dollar-a-year men". An example was John Wilson McConnell, the owner and publisher of the Montreal Star, who was appointed Director of Licences for the Wartime Trade Board, a position for which he served for free. Others include E. P. Taylor and Austin Cotterell Taylor.

...
Wikipedia