MSLOT77 Though the Ford family no longer owns a majority of common stock, Ford is still very much a family operation. A final indignity for Ford was an exodus of talented people, a "brain drain" the company could ill-afford in this new crisis. First, Don Petersen handed over the chairman's gavel in 1990 to his one-time number-two, Harold A. "Red" Poling; at the same time, the president's job was reactivated after a two-year lapse for Phillip Benton, Jr. Both these men were Dearborn veterans, but they were merely a transition team, for late 1993 ushered in the worldly wise Alex Trotman as both president and chairman.|Why won't my Garage Door go Down?