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Page 56
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Freddie Wood
• Will the National Bus Company, one of the largest bus undertakings in the world, continue to contract ? Not in the opinion of 45year old Mr F. A. S. (Freddie) Wood, who has been chairman of Croda International Ltd since he was 26, and became part-time chairman of the National Bus Company from January 1.
He admits that a further reduction in the overall fleet size is inevitable, but believes that a stabilization point will be reached in two to three years. Freddie Wood, a family man who likes large American cars and often pilots his company's own light aircraft, forecasts a big swing back to public transport, supported by Government measures. Mergers of NBC undertakings will continue, as rationalization proceeds, but he claims that the importance of company names and colours is a popular shibboleth now out of date, The drab red and green liveries with drab cream relief have got to be changed, he declares, There are 'plans afoot" for brighter colours, he says.
Freddie Wood has this week been chairing a meeting of NBC top brass in Leicester to explain the restructuring of the company into three regions, which came into effect this month. And today (Friday) he is due to be interviewed on BBC2's The Money Programme at a. p.m.
A Yorkshireman, Freddie Wood spent one year at Cambridge University before becoming an observer in the Fleet Air Arm during the last years of the wax, in 1947 he joined Croda Ltd, then a small firm run by his great uncle, and his father, who was managing director.
Following thdir early deaths, he joined the board in 1949 at the early age of 22, and became chief executive in 1953, building Croda International Ltd into the large organization it is today, manufacturing and marketing oleochemicals.
Freddie Wood sees leadership, motivating people, and creating a style as the most important aspects of his new role. NBC is a relatively new company formed by the merging of the former Tilling and BET bus undertakings„ and has not formed its own special image yet. This is one of the priorities,on which fie is now concentrating, while keeping to NBC's mandate to operate as a commercially viable
undertaking, D. M.