Los Angeles County
Biographies
DON BELDING
Don Belding, chairman of the Executive Committee of Foot, Cone & Belding, was born January 23, 1898, in Grants Pass, Oregon; son of W. P and Mollie (Dowell) Belding.
He graduated from Grants Pass (Oregon) High school in 1914 as president of his class and editor of the High School annual. After eighteen months’ service in the First World War, as a radio sergeant, he returned to graduate with the B.S. degree from University of Oregon in 1919.
Mr. Belding was manager of the Western Union, Klamath Falls, Oregon, 1919-21; then editor of the Klamath Falls Record, changing it into a daily, but was forced to sell out in 1923 owing to a prolonged strike in the lumber industry. He then became manager of the Postal Telegraph office in Bakersfield, California, but soon broke down with pulmonary tuberculosis and spent one year in the United States Veterans Hospital at Camp Kearney, California. When he recovered he went to Los Angeles with the determination to enter the advertising business and, through persistence, was employed by Lord & Thomas as an office boy, without a salary. Five months later he went on the payroll as assistant space buyer, then in 1925 he became space buyer of the Los Angeles office and manager of a research department which he created; became copy writer in 1927, junior account executive in 1927, senior account in 1929, vice president and manager in 1938, and executive vice president in 1941. The firm dissolved in December of 1942 and he became chairman of the board of Foote, Cone & Belding, which took over the personnel of Lord & Thomas. He was recently made chairman of the Executive Committee.
Mr. Belding is chairman of the Board of Freedoms Foundation, Inc., Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; former chairman of Joint Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies Committee on Improvement of Public Understanding of our Economic System; former chairman of Small Business Advisory Committee of the United States Department of Commerce; director of American Heritage Foundation; founder and former director of Advertising Council; director of Spiritual Mobilization; and director of Alpha Delta Sigma Advertising Fraternity. Past president of Advertising Association of the West (two terms) and chairman of Advertising Commission of the West. Past director of Merchants & Manufacturers Association of Los Angeles; past director of Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce (three terms); vice chairman of Los Angeles Conference of Civic Organization; past master of Masonic Order.
Mr. Belding is contributor to trade and technical journals. His hobby is yachting.
On March 28, 1942, he married (2nd) Alice Louise Freter. He has two children by a former marriage, Don, Jr. and Barbara; and two grandchildren, Don III and Anita.
Home: 4115 Dundee Drive, Los Angeles, California.
Office: 601 West Fifth Street, Los Angeles, California.
Transcribed
By: Michele Y. Larsen on July 14, 2013.
Source: Eminent Californians 1953, by Lee
E. Johnson & C. W. Taylor. Pages 25-26, C. W. Taylor Publ., Palo Alto,
California, 1953.
© 2013 Michele Y. Larsen.
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