Bradley Gayton, Ford Motor Company
A distinct lack of diversity at the upper levels of private practice led Bradley Gayton in-house straight from college. He shares his experience of coming into the top job at Ford as a life-long employee.
I have spent my entire career here at Ford, and it’s a special story that I’m really proud of.
I grew up in Syracuse, New York, and I went to undergraduate law school in Buffalo. My wife was a year behind me in law school. We looked at law firms in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse – it’s a beautiful part of the country and we really had a desire to stay there. But as you scanned the major law firms at the time, I don’t believe there were any black partners, there were very few women, and I couldn’t identify any gay or lesbian partners. We therefore concluded it was not likely that I would be successful in any of these firms if others that looked like me had failed to achieve success. So I didn’t even look for a job in the area where I grew up and wanted to live. But we did see a diversity of lawyers achieving success in places like New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. And so that’s where we decided that I would look for a job.
