CHARLES ERWIN WILSON,* 62, president of General Motors Corp.
Family & Early Years: Born in 1890 at Minerva, Ohio. Both his father and mother were schoolteachers. "Engine Charlie" has been fascinated by machines since he was a boy (two of the Wilsons' neighbors were locomotive engineers who often took him for rides). He went through a four-year electrical engineering course at Carnegie Tech in three years, graduated at 18.
Business Career: Went to work as an apprentice for Westinghouse at 18¢ an hour, designed Westinghouse's first automobile starter, built radio generators and dynamotors for...