William Clay Ford Jr. (born May 3, 1957) is an American businessman, serving as executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. The great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, Ford joined the board in 1988 and has served as chairman since January 1999. Ford also served as the president, CEO, and COO until turning over those roles to former Boeing executive Alan Mulally in September 2006. Ford is also the vice chairman of the Detroit Lions NFL franchise. Ford serves as a chairman of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce. Early life and education Ford was born in Detroit, Michigan, the great-grandson of Henry Ford I and great-grandson of Harvey S. Firestone. His father was William Clay Ford Sr. and his mother is Martha Firestone. On his mother's side, his grandparents are Harvey S. Firestone Jr. and Elizabeth Parke. On his father's side, his grandparents are Edsel Ford I and Eleanor Lowthian Clay. Edsel Ford II, son of Henry Ford II and also a board member, is his first cousin. Ford has three sisters: Martha Morse (who has 3 children), Sheila Hamp (who has 3 children), and Elizabeth Kontulis. He, like his great-grandfather Henry Ford, is of mainly Irish, English, and Belgian descent. Ford graduated from the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut in 1975. He then attended Princeton University and graduated with an A.B. in history in 1979 after completing a 105-page long senior thesis titled "Henry Ford and Labor: A Reappraisal." While a student at Princeton, Ford was president of the Ivy Club and played on the Princeton rugby team. In 1984 he received an M.S. in management as a Sloan Fellow from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Career He joined Ford in 1979 and held a variety of positions, beginning in product development and on the financial staff, a grooming ground for future executives. He served several years as a mid-ranking executive in product development. He also briefly headed the Climate Control Division (since divested from the company as part of the Visteon spinoff). At the time of the Ford 2000 reorganization, he was in charge of heavy truck operations. Corporate governance Ford gave up an executive position in heavy truck program management to become chairman of the finance committee on the board of directors, a non-executive corporate governance position. He was elected chairman of the board in September 1998 and took office on January 1, 1999. Ford added the