Charles Ranlett Flint


Charles Ranlett Flint was the founder of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company which later became IBM. For his financial dealings he earned the moniker "Father of Trusts".

Early life and family

Flint was born on January 24, 1850 in Thomaston, Maine. His father, Benjamin Chapman, had changed the family name to Flint after being adopted by an uncle on his mother's side. The family moved from Maine to New York City where his father ran the family's mercantile firm Chapman & Flint, which had been founded in 1837.

Business career

In 1868, Charles Flint graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, and in 1871 entered the shipping business as a partner in Gilchrest, Flint & Co., and later W.R. Grace & Co. after a merger.
From 1876 to 1879, he served as the Chilean consul at New York City. He also served as consul general to the United States for Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
In 1892, he consolidated several companies to form U.S. Rubber. In 1893, he fitted out a fleet of naval ships for Brazilian Republic. He purchased the Esmeralda from Chilean Navy and delivered it via Ecuador to Japan during the First Sino-Japanese War. In 1899 he repeated the same with Adams Chewing Gum, Chiclets, Dentyne, and Beemans to form American Chicle. He was also responsible for the formation of American Woolen in 1899.
In 1911 he formed the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company through the amalgamation of four companies: The Tabulating Machine Company, International Time Recording Company, Computing Scale Company of America, and the Bundy Manufacturing Company. Amalgamation was unusual at the time - Flint described it as an "allied" consolidation. In 1924, CTR was re-christened as International Business Machines. Flint served on the board of directors of IBM until 1930 when he retired.
He died on February 26, 1934 in Washington, D.C..

Legacy

Charles Flint was an avid sportsman and loved swimming, hunting, fishing, sailing, and aviation. He helped found the Automobile Club of America. He held the world water speed record.
His Time Magazine obituary stated he negotiated the Wright Brothers' first sales of airplanes overseas.
But it was the Wrights themselves, in sometimes contentious negotiations with Charles R. Flint & Co., who determined contract terms.