K. T. Keller
American automotive executive and art collector(1885-1966
Kaufman Thuma Keller (27 November 1885 – 21 January 1966), was an American corporate executive who served as the president of Chrysler Corporation from 1935 to 1950 and as its chairman of the board from 1950 to 1956. He is also known for proposing the creation of the Detroit Arsenal.
Biography
Automotive career
Keller joined the General Motors Company (GMC) in 1911, and he worked as a general master mechanic for one of GMC's divisions, the Buick Motor Company from 1916 to 1919. He quickly rose to become a vice president of Chevrolet in 1921, later becoming a vice president for Chrysler.
From 1935 to 1950 he served as Chrysler's president and then as its chairman of the board until 1956. Under his leadership, Chrysler became second among the world's largest auto producers, with sales exceeding $1 billion in 1947. Further, Chrysler pioneered many of the "engineering advances that are standard today, including high-compression engines and four-wheel hydraulic brakes." Under his leadership Chrysler got a contract from the US government for isolating Uranium 235, and he was a key figure in proposing a nickel plated device for this process that would allow replacement of much of the nickel with less expensive steel.
Public service
Following World War II, President Harry S. Truman appointed Keller as chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on the Merchant Marine in 1947. Truman also appointed Keller to serve as the director of the Office of Guided Missiles. In 1954, he was one of ten outstanding scientists and industrialists appointed to the newly formed Army Scientific Advisory Panel.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q21664611. VIAF identifies the subject as 41176351. The Library of Congress control number is n99270350. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1885, 1966, 1935 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “K. T. Keller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.