Leon P. Alford

Leon Pratt Alford (Jan. 3, 1877 – Feb. 2, 1942) was an American mechanical engineer, organizational theorist, and administrator for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. known for his seminal work in the field of industrial management.

Born in Simsbury, Connecticut, Alford graduated from the High School of Plainville, Connecticut, and in 1896 from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After ten years in the industry in various functions, he received his ME from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1905.

In 1896 Alford started as shop foreman at the McKay Metallic Fastening Assn. in Boston, which merged to McKay-Bigelow Heeling Assn. in 1897. After another two years as shop foreman, he found employ as production superintendent at the United Shoe Machinery Company in 1899 in Boston. The United Shoe Machinery Company, formed in 1899 out of the merger of three shoe machinery companies, developed revolutionary new shoemaking equipment, which revolutionized the shoe industry. The company employed 9,000 workers and in its best days supplied 85% of all shoemaking machines in the United States. In 1902 Alford got promoted to mechanical engineer, and invented and patented some new constructions for the United Shoe Machinery Company.

In 1907 Alford started working in engineering journalism for the Engineering Magazine company. From 1907 to 1911 he was engineering editor at the American Machinist, and from 1911 to 1917 editor-in-chief. Sequentially he was editor for the Industrial Management from 1917 to 1920, from 1921 to 1923 editor for Manufacturing Industrial Management, and from 1923 to 1928 consulting editor for the Factory and Industrial Management and vice-president of the Ronald Press Company in New York. Alford co-developed the theory called systematic management, and was an advocate of this management style within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

In 1929, Herbert Hoover appointed a president's commission to investigate the current state of the economy. Alford served on this panel and was the principal co-author of the committee's report, Recent Economic Changes (1929). From 1935 to 1937 he joined the Federal Communications Commission, where he was assistant engineer-in-charge of the manufacturing costs unit. In 1937 Alford jointed the faculty of New York University, where he became chairman of the department of administrative engineering.

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