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A Good Unwinding: Bill Anders and General Dynamics

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A leading defense analyst once praised the former CEO of defense conglomerate General Dynamics, Bill Anders: “After orbiting the moon, mundane business problems did not faze him”

Bill Anders was a CEO with an … unusual qualification. Anders was one of the astronauts assigned to NASA’s Apollo 8 mission to the moon in 1968 — where he took Earthrise, the first color picture of Earth from space! 

Earthrise

Earthrise, 1968, copyright-free, NASA

This case, however, is not about Anders’s tenure as an astronaut. It’s about what he did after he retired from NASA, when he took over at General Dynamics. In the words of The Washington Post, Anders turned “a money-losing defense giant into a cash bonanza for its stockholders.” And he did all this at a time when the defense industry itself was shrinking, under existential threat.

Anders entered the business world for the first time at the age of 45. He joined General Electric, first as VP and then general manager of the nuclear products division, and later the aircraft equipment division. There, Anders worked under the early years of Jack Welch’s tenure as CEO, and was trained in the GE management approach. In 1984, Anders left. He was hired to run the commercial operations of the industrial conglomerate Textron. His contrarian streak, however, was not appreciated by Textron’s bureaucratic leadership. So in 1989, when he was offered a chance to join General Dynamics as vice-chairman for a year, with a guarantee of becoming CEO after that, he jumped at the opportunity. 

The defense industry was going through some very significant changes around this time. The end of the Cold War had sent it into a tailspin. Six months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, demand plummeted, leading to a 40% drop in the index of leading publicly traded defense companies. These companies, traditionally reliant on supplying large weapons systems to support America’s post-World War II military strategy, were suddenly faced with an existential challenge.

Historically, General Dynamics had been a leading supplier of military aircrafts, ships, and land vehicles. It had also diversified into missiles, space systems, and non-defense businesses (including commercial Cessnas and building supplies). In the 1980s, the company was shaken by a federal investigation which revealed executive abuse of company planes and other benefits.

General Dynamics's front page in October 2024, showcasing an APC, a submarine, a fifth-generation fighter jet, and a satellite.

General Dynamics's front page image today (retrieved 28 Octobe ...

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