Deborah S. Kent (b. 1953), African American assembly plant head. As quoted in the New York Times, sect. 3, p. 7 (February 5, 1995).
The third of nine children raised by Leodas and Earline Stewart, a St. Louis laborer and housewife, Kent became the first woman ever to head a vehicle assembly plant for the Ford Motor Company. Her plant, in Avon Lake, Ohio, was the third largest of Ford's thirty- eight United States facilities.