Charles Lukens Huston, Jr. The son of Charles Lukens Huston, Sr. and Annie Stewart Huston graduated from Princeton University in 1928 where he majored in Personnel Management, as well as played the trumpet in the Princeton Band.
He then furthered his education by attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year and the University of Cincinnati night school for two years, 1931-1932. At the age of twenty, he met Nancy, who was fifteen, and they courted and married when she was eighteen. After graduating, he was associated with Armco Steel Corporation for ten years (1929-1939) before joining the Lukens Steel company.
In 1946, he became "executive assistant to the president when Lukenweld and ByProducts subsidiaries ceased their corporate existence and were merged" into one whole company. Then he was elected vice president in 1948 and served as president of the Bran-Del Corporation and for the Clayton Skiffs, Inc. He joined Lukens as director of personal relations and was then named president of the firm and president of the Executive committee in 1949.
Huston was far sighted enough to make beneficial changes to the company. In the 1950s, he decided to make the change from open-hearth furnaces to electrical furnaces due to technological changes that were advancing around the world. In 1957, the company broke ground for the new melting electrical furnace and in later years a second one was built. He was a very truthful man whose word was his bond and he was a very headstrong businessman.
Huston established management by committee, which the steel field recognized him for. This was where he would meet with all of the management vice presidents every Monday and they would all discuss the status of the company. Then he also developed the second line, called management council. This was made up of several people that were one step below the management committee and there was communication throughout the company so that there was someone beneath each member that was fully capable to step up and fulfill their position in case something were to go wrong and they could no fulfill their job. Huston insisted that each member of the committee take four weeks vacation, two weeks at a time, so that those below them could come up and take over for a short period of time, this would also allow any hidden potential that could be held down to emerge. This management style was awarded many times and is used in many places to run many businesses in the industry. In all Huston was an Industry panel member of the National War Labor Board in the 1940s, Director with the American Management Association from 1944-1946, and was a member of the General Management Planning Council, AMA, for six years until 1956.
Huston was involved in many different organizations, such as: Industrial Relations Committee (NAM), Board of Manager, Coatesville Hospital Association, past president and director of the Family Agency of Chester County, trustee at Drexel Institute of Technology, Chairman of Public Relations Committee of Princeton Alumni Council, member of the Council's Executive Committee, director of Newport news Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Canadian-American Committee, director of Lukens Steel Company, director and chairman of the board of Allegheny Ore and iron company, director of american Iron & Steel Institute, and a member of Franklin Institute.
