Douglas Aldrich Brown, Boynton Beach, died July 19, 2009. Born Jan. 18, 1922, in Melrose, Mass., he moved to Delray Beach in 1989 and to Boynton Beach in 1992. Mr. Brown was a graduate of Harvard College, Class of 1944, and was executive editor of the Harvard Crimson and editor of the Alumni Bulletin as an undergraduate.
During World War II, after commissioning as Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force on graduation from the AAF Statistical School at the Harvard Business School, he served as stat control officer in the Pacific Theatre of Operations with duty in Okinawa, the Philippines, China and Japan. He was discharged as a Captain in 1945.
Returning to Harvard, he did graduate work in economics and was assistant director of the University News Office.
In 1950, he joined the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich., as a speechwriter and two years later moved to the company's Sales and Advertising staff as manager of the Administrative Department and secretary of the company's Marketing Committee. In 1958, Mr. Brown was assigned to Ford's International Division and, after several managerial positions within the division, he became Sales and Marketing Manager for Ford of Sweden in Stockholm where he served five years. Subsequently, he directed sales activities in Ford of Netherlands before becoming Regional Manager for Ford's northern European marketing operations in Brussels, Belgium.
In 1967, he moved to Ford of Europe in London where he developed and directed Ford's Europe-wide dealership and identification program for five years. He then became Marketing Manager for Ford of Venezuela in Caracas. He retired from Ford in 1983 and lived in the Birmingham-Bloomfield Hills area of Michigan prior to moving full-time to Florida.
Mr. Brown was a member of Quail Ridge Country Club, the Little Club of Gulfstream, the Harvard Club of the Palm Beaches, the Delray Beach Club, and a former member of the Royal Golf Club of London and Epson Downs, England. He was also a long-time member of the Methodist Church.
Surviving him are his wife, Constance (Hatch); daughter Wynne Brown of Portal, Ariz.; son Stephen Jones of Durham, N.C., and daughter-in-law, Andrea Wilson Jones of Melrose, Mass. His grandsons include Nicholas Jones, Douglas Jones, Richard Bond, and Gilbeth Bond. His great-grandsons include Aleksander and Liam Bond. He was predeceased by his son David Jones of Melrose, Mass.
Through his maternal family he was a direct descendant of John Leverett, Governor of Massachusetts from 1616 to 1679 and John Leverett the Younger, president of Harvard College from 1708 to 1724. On the paternal side, Mr. Brown was descended directly from James Bowdoin, an early benefactor of Bowdoin College (Maine) and for whom the college was named.