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A Knack to Manage. David Brown has done more than show Britain's manufacturers how to move faster. He has been far ahead of most in finding ways of improving morale and productivity of his workers and developing his executives from their ranks. When a 25-acre estate and mansion near one plant became vacant in 1944, Brown transformed it into a dining room and social center for his workers. He turned his former home at Huddersfield into a guest house for his executives.
Brown has given up racing himself (though his 21-year-old daughter Angela and son David Jr. race), but he still rides in county point-to-point races on the thoroughbreds he raises on his 700-acre farm, Chequers Manor, near London. A licensed pilot, he often flies his own plane on business trips. In his hunt for new markets all over the globe, he has found he can ship British tractors through the Panama Canal cheaply enough to compete with Midwest tractor makers for California sales. Says he: "We wouldn't try to sell in the Midwest, because those farmers are like our Yorkshiremen—inclined to distrust a product they don't know. Californians are willing to try something new."