Dr. A. Fogg
Page 67
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
As announced last week, Dr. A. Fogg, who has been director of the Council of the Motor Industry Research Association since its inception in 1946, is to leave that post and in August will become full-time director of research and a member of the board of the Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd. Albert Fogg is a Doctor of Science, a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a Member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, and a Fellow of the Institute of Petroleum. What sort of man is he ?
The Commercial Motor arranged this exclusive interview to find the answer
THE first thing to get right about Albert Fogg is his attitude to science in general and the motor industry in particular. For this Doctor of Science—probably the only man in the industry to hold such a distinguished degree—is no ivory tower man. If he were it is doubtful whether the Motor Industry Research Association would have achieved the world-wide fame it enjoys today; it is certain he would not be joining the group of down-to-earth, go-getting experts who constitute the Leyland board.
One does not associate Dr. Fogg with Oxbridge common rooms, or with "high table" crusted port. Sir Charles Snow, himself a scientist of no mean order, has somehow left the Foggs out of his novels of university life.
"Over the years with M.I.R.A., I have had to become a lot more than a researcher ", Fogg told me as we talked in his severely functional office at Lindley. "This place has been built up from very small beginnings, and I have found myself a man of all work—my own lawyer, surveyor, office manager—the lot. So my job in later years has been as much administration as science."
Dr. Fogg is a Lancashire man—born and educated there from start to finish at Stand Grammar School, Whitfield, and Manchester University. When it came to picking up knowledge young Fogg was no slouch. He seems to have been pretty good at everything, but especially mathematics. Yet sport appealed to him too. Not for him the pale face " sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought ". He was a normal, healthy Lancashire lad with a quicker mind than most, a description which is every bit as accurate now at 55 as it was 35 years ago.
He came into engineering almost by chance. Winning a scholarship at Manchester University he could choose from a number of courses of study. He found himself in the School of Engineering, though, as he says, "I hardly knew what engineering was ". He found out all right if a B.Sc. with first-class honours (engineering) means anything.
But the brilliant young graduate found it difficult to get a job. Many other promising youngsters were in the same plight when engineering looked very much like a dead end. So he remained at the University as a researcher, taking his M.Sc. When he finally went down in 1930 it was to join the engineering department at the National Physical Laboratory where he did fundamental research on friction, lubrication and bearings. After work in the investigation and testing of prime movers, transmissions and other devices he was engaged on ballistics research for the War Office and a little later took a hand in gas turbine research for the Ministry of Aircraft Production—aero engines now rather than motor vehicles.
It was in 1946 that he joined M.I.R.A. as its first director. In the 18 years that have elapsed since then the Association's services have been increasingly sought by the whole of the motor industry; and that the available facilities have developed from scratch to the complex unit we know today is largely because of Fogg's ability as administrator and chooser of men. The very size of the place gives some idea of the scope of its services. From the air it looks rather like a fully-equipped airport.
Naturally he will regret leaving Lindley. I suspect that it will prove to be a wrench to him. Moreover, 55 years is not an age when many men, particularly those of cautious temperament (and I judge this to be Fogg's), are willing to make a big change in their career. Yet though I believe him to be well endowed with north country prudence I see in him a strong streak of that "get on or get out" character without which no man can become an administrator or executive of the first rank.
And Doctors of Science, like the rest of us, are not deaf to offers of wider scope and bigger salaries. He did not tell me so—indeed, I did not venture to ask the questionbut I imagine Leyland have made encouraging financial gestures.
But to say this is not to advance the view that Fogg is leaving only, or even primarily, for the money. I do not believe he is. Perhaps he is slightly disappointed— though, again, he did not say so to me--that the industry has been somewhat reluctant to apply pure science rather than rule of thumb to its problems.
Leyland, of all firms, is practical, with people who are in business to build and sell commercial vehicles and cars. As much as any organization they have acted on rule of thumb in their time. But now Sir William Black, the Leyland chairman, says, apropos the Fogg appointment: "One of the greatest problems in industry today is to bridge the gap between the rapid advance in scientific knowledge and the practical application of that knowledge by the industrial engineer. . . . We feel that our company, with its large stake in the future of transport throughout the world, must be in contact with those developments which are revolutionary today but which may be commonplace in 10 years' time." By which token Albert Fogg, at 55, is a man of to-morrow: he bridges the gap between scientists and "practical" men of the commercial vehicle industry. Observing the portents of today he will try to foresee the trends of the future and then argue out his findings with one of the most formidable boards in this country.
I'm going to enjoy the arguments ", he says with relish. H.C. a4