Dodge, Joseph M. (Joseph Morrell), 1890-1964

Joseph Morrell Dodge (1890-1964) banking executive and government official, was born in Detroit, Michigan. From 1917 to 1932, Dodge was vice-president and general manager of the Thomas J. Doyle Company, an automotive concern, and in 1933 he began a twenty-year presidency of the Detroit Bank. In 1947 and 1948 he was president of the American Bankers Association. In 1941 Dodge was director of a headquarters staff division of Army Service Forces. In 1942 Dodge's government career began when he was a price adjuster for the Army Air Force's Price Adjustment Board for the Central Procurement District, making sure that the government did not pay excessive prices to private contractors. In September 1943 he became chairman of the War Department's Price Adjustment Board in Washington; and by October he was chairman of the Joint Price Adjustment Board and the War Contracts Price Adjustment Board, with broad powers to settle problems previously under the jurisdiction of six separate federal agencies. At the end of the war, during 1945-1946, Dodge served under General Dwight D. Eisenhower as financial adviser of the Office of Military Government in Berlin and later as finance director for American forces in Germany under General Lucius D. Clay. For this work Dodge was awarded the Medal for Merit in 1946.

President, Detroit Bank; formed National Bank of Detroit; president and director of Detroit Savings Bank (now Detroit Bank and Trust); chief, U.S. Delegation to Austrian Treaty Commission, 1947; member, U.S. Delegation, Council of Foreign Ministers, England (Nov-Dec,1947); director, Finance Division, Office of Military Government, Germany, 1945-1946; financial consultant to Occupation in Japan, 1944-1952; director, Bureau of the Budget, 1953-1954; chairman, War Department Price Adjustment Board; chairman, War Contracts-Price Adjustment board; director, Renegotiation Division.