Albert Luce

Albert Laurence Luce (also known as A.L. Luce (1888-1962)^[1][2] was an American industrialist, entrepreneur, bus designer, and business owner. He is best known for founding the Blue Bird Body Company, a bus and recreational vehicle manufacturer now known as Blue Bird Corporation. Today, the company is one of the largest manufacturers of school buses in North America; alongside school buses, Blue Bird makes a variety of other buses sold around the world.

Biography

"Blue Bird Number 1", the first bus constructed by A.L. Luce in 1927. Preserved by his family, it was donated to The Henry Ford Museum in 2008.

Early life

Albert Laurence Luce was born on June 26, 1888 in La Grange, Illinois, a village in Cook County, Illinois. Growing up in LaGrange, his father was manager of a local lumber yard.^[1] In the early 1910s, Luce attended Northwestern University, studying science.^[1]

By the middle of the decade, Luce had entered the business world, leaving Illinois for El Centro, California to become a distributor for Maxwell automobiles (later the forerunner of Chrysler). Following the entry of the United States into World War I, Luce enlisted in the United States Army, participating in the liberation of France in 1918.^[1] Following his return to the United States in 1919, he returned to the automotive business, becoming a franchise owner for Ford Motor Company. However, instead of Southern California, the franchise was located in Fort Valley, Georgia.^[1] A rural community supported by pecan and peach farming, Fort Valley would become the home for A.L. Luce for the rest of his life. In 1920, he married Helen Mathews, a daughter of a local minister.^[1]

1920s: First bus designs

As the automobile sales business grew, Luce was given a second Ford franchise in Perry, Georgia, which he named Houston County Motor Company. In 1925, the dealership received an order from a local cement company manufacturer for a Model T fitted with a bus body to transport company workers. Fitting the Model T chassis with a wooden bus body supplied from North Carolina, Luce was unconvinced of the durability of the wooden bus body; a number of roads in rural Georgia were still unpaved and very rough. As the bus was financed on an installment plan, he was concerned the bus would have to be replaced before the owner finished paying for it.^[1] To develop a stronger bus body, with the help of a blacksmith in his Perry dealership, Luce designed a bus body composed primarily of steel.^[1] Much like the school buses of today, the bus body used steel sheetmetal over what was essentially a steel skeleton. Wood and canvas were used as secondary materials, primarily in the roof structure. Due to the warm climate of Georgia, the bus body was designed without windows, leaving roll-up canvas curtains as emergency weather protection; the body was fitted to a 1927 Model T chassis.^[1] While developed as a side project, the 1927 bus was sold to a school bus driver in Marshallville, Georgia; a second bus was built in 1929.

1930s: Founding of Blue Bird

The Great Depression hit the Ford sales of Luce very hard; from 1930 to 1931, sales of Fords fell over 95%; while only 7 buses were sold, they constituted the majority of sales for his operations.^[1] In 1932, after the closure of the Fort Valley dealership, Luce sold off Houston County Motor Company in Perry, using the proceeds to start a company specializing in school bus bodies. Luce made the decision to start the company based on two reasons. First, his family wanted to support the local workforce; in addition, as rural schools across the United States were consolidated into larger school districts, there was a sustainable demand for bus transportation.^[1] As Luce wanted to raise funds to build a factory, the first buses were built in a rented shed normally used for packing peaches; in 1934, bus construction was moved to a rented horse stable.^[1] In 1935, Luce built the first dedicated factory in Fort Valley, a 27,000 square foot facility.

While it is officially unknown how the Blue Bird name was chosen for the company, the best-known version stems from A.L. Luce wanting an alternative to the family name, due to its pronunciation potentially causing marketing issues^[1] In the early 1930s, while showing a blue and yellow scale model to potential school district customers, a student in the room called it a "pretty little blue bird"; while school buses are no longer allowed to use blue paint, Luce quickly decided to adopt the Blue Bird name for the company.^[1]

Soon after the Blue Bird Body Company factory was opened, Luce began work on a new generation of school bus bodies. As wooden school bus bodies offered little crash protection, the company converted its factory to build bus bodies entirely of steel. In addition, to offer better weather protection in rain and cold weather, the company added windows in place of the canvas curtains.^[1] The new all-metal buses began production for 1938. In April 1939, Blue Bird was a manufacturer invited to a national conference in New York City organized by Frank W. Cyr; designed to develop a consistent set of production standards for school buses, the conference changed many aspects of school bus design forever. While over 40 standards were introduced, the most notable was the adoption of school bus yellow as a common color for all school buses.

1940s: Wartime and new bus design

During World War II, as with other automotive manufacturers, Blue Bird existed as a military supplier, building bus and ambulance bodies for the armed forces.

In 1945, a fire that burned down the Blue Bird factory in Fort Valley nearly killed Luce, as he had become trapped trying to fight the fire with a fire extinguisher, but was rescued by a factory worker shortly before the factory exploded.^[1] By mid-1946, a new, larger factory was built in Fort Valley, however, A.L. Luce nearly died from a heart attack at the factory shortly after its opening.^[1]

After recovering from his heart attack, Luce went on a trip to Europe in 1948. Along with his son George, A.L Luce visited the 1948 Paris Auto Salon, where he saw an all-new forward-control bus. Highly interested in its General Motors/Opel chassis, Luce unsuccessfully tried to secure a supply arrangement with GM. After buying the bus outright and importing it into the United States, the chassis was modified and developed for use with a school bus body, becoming the first Blue Bird All American.^[1] In production since 1949, the All American is the longest-produced model of school bus in North America.

Later life

In 1950, A.L. Luce officially retired as the president of Blue Bird, with A.L. "Buddy" Luce, Jr. succeeding him.^[1] After his first heart attack, he had gradually relinquished business duties to his three sons. In late 1947, he was given back the first school bus that had built in 1927. Fully restored by the company, the bus body was mounted on replacement 1927 Model T chassis.^[1]

During a trip to California in October 1962, Luce had a second heart attack, and he died from pneumonia in San Francisco on October 16th, 1962.

Pioneers of the yellow school bus industry

Mr. Luce is among the early school bus industry pioneers including Perley A. Thomas, who founded Thomas Built Buses, D.H. "Dave" Ward, founder of Ward Body Works (now IC Bus), and the educator Dr. Frank W. Cyr, who, for his persistent work since 1939 to develop school bus safety standards across the country, is widely considered the father of the yellow school bus.

References