Leaders All — F. C. Munroe, Organizer of Men and Systems (1924) 🇺🇸
Leaders All — F. C. Munroe
Because upon his entrance to a business career he devoted a mind already academically trained to the accumulation of knowledge of practical details, particularly along organization lines; because of his steady development with a rapidly expanding business in a field where there were few precedents; and because of the executive ability displayed in the management of great responsibilities in a time of national stress and in the period of readjustment
It is a ripe experience which F. C. Munroe, the new president of the Hodkinson company, brings to his responsible position. It was an unusual background in organization, in building and operating systems in which men and. materials were the chief factors, that he carried with him into the Hodkinson offices.
But let’s start this story at the beginning, which was in a little Massachusetts seaport town, famous wherever seamen foregather — Marblehead. The date was March 14, 1873. Young Munroe went to school in Salem, in the high school of that famous old community preparing for Harvard, which he entered in due course and from which also he was graduated.
Mr. Munroe’s first experience in business was with his father manufacturing shoes in New Hampshire. The burden of the active management fell on the recent graduate. Possibly it was this fact that led some of the employees, the lasters, to feel they could put something over on the young man and they walked out on him. The departing men were sanguine they would be sent for in short order and put at work at advanced wages.
To their surprise they encountered a fight, so strenuously conducted that following the filling of their benches they sued for peace. Where possibly they had felt they were dealing with a “kid” their viewpoint was changed.
Following the death of his father, Mr. Munroe disposed of the business in New Hampshire and returned to Salem. He entered the employ of the Western Telephone and Telegraph Company, a holding body for five telephone companies. His initial salary was $15 a week.
After two years with this company the young man went to the New England Telephone Company as auditor of supplies. It was a newly created job, one without precedent in the company, and one that was demanded by the rapid expansion of the telephone business.
Without any knowledge of telephone equipment Mr. Munroe put on overalls and went into the warehouse. For three months he stuck to the work, getting acquainted with the many different kinds of equipment necessary in the maintenance and physical operation of a telephone company.
To his title of auditor of supplies was added “and freight.” After two years with the New England he was made company sales manager, under the title of superintendent of contract department.
The policy of the company at that time called for an intensive development and selling campaign, involving house to house work on the part of the department. It was the period of the great expansion of the telephone in the home, subscribers being offered three months’ service gratis for signing a one year’s contract.
In a short time Mr. Munroe’s department was extended until 300 salesmen were at work, divided into districts. It was an experience that stood the head of the department in good stead in later years.
All through this period Mr. Munroe made a close study of organization, in the abstract and in the concrete, in railroads, in the army, in government and in industry generally.
When the great change in the plan of telephone organization was determined on Mr. Munroe was ready for it. It involved a specialized form of administration on a functional basis of different units, and had been passed on by some of the ablest men in that line of industry.
Under the new order Mr. Munroe was called upon to fill the created office of commercial engineer. In the carrying out of his duties he was required to do much traveling. He acquired a large acquaintance among the officials of the Bell system and in the course of his work read papers on the multiplying problems.
He came to be looked upon as an expert on the subject of rates, which as a matter of fact constituted only a part of his duties. While in that particular division there was maintained a large force of employees, he also had supervision over another division engaged in the work of determining scientifically so far as possible the developments and the requirements of future years, in some cases two decades in advance. Mr. Munroe was among the first to enter this interesting and as he found it fascinating field of commercial economics.
When war was declared Mr. Munroe joined the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety and aided in organizing and operating the Y. M. C. A. campaign.
The severing of sixteen or seventeen years’ relation with the telephone work came with suddenness. At a half hours’ notice he closed his desk one afternoon and practically never went back.
The Y. M. C. A. campaign had been successfully ended and the call came to Mr. Munroe to take up the organization of the Red Cross membership campaign. It was accepted, and the work was performed.
The commercial engineer was still an officer of the telephone company, and had no idea he was not going to continue. But another call came. This one was even more insistent than the others, and was to join B. W. Traggart of Boston in raising New England’s quota of the $185,000,000 national Red Cross fund. That job was successfully accomplished.
Then, in the summer of 1918, when the war was at its height, Mr. Munroe was called to Washington. In spite of the herculean efforts of the Red Cross the scarcity of nurses in France was causing worry. The War Department determined to institute a world survey of all the nursing material available.
It was to make this survey that Mr. Munroe went to Washington, expecting to remain three or four months. Actually he remained three years, taking into account the time he afterward devoted to work in Europe.
The task involved the tabulating of 150 details developed individually in questionnaires returned from 300,000 women. A staff of fifty clerks was required to handle the vast volume of work. In August of 1918 Mr. Munroe was asked to remain as assistant to General Manager George Scott of the National Red Cross.
On March 1 of the following year Mr. Munroe was requested by the organization to become its general manager, which position he occupied until January of 1921.
Before finally retiring from his organization work, however, he was asked to proceed to Europe and facilitate the retirement of the American Red Cross.
This assignment also was accepted and for several months Mr. Munroe traveled all over the Continent, or at least over Austria, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
He was extensively entertained by the rulers of these countries, in Prague an elaborate state function being given in honor of the delegate of the Red Cross.
On his return to Washington Mr. Munroe formally retired from the Red Cross. Then, expecting to take a rest before entering business, out of the clear sky came a request to take the position of vice-president and general manager of the Hodkinson Company, with charge of operation.
On the first of the present year Mr. Munroe was elected president of the company. For three months he has been busy with his enlarged staff getting new material for the coming year. That work practically has been accomplished, and in the next six weeks the details will be announced.
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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 5 April 1924
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