Portal:Michigan/Selected Biography/5

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Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th President (1974–1977), and 40th Vice President (1973–1974) of the United States. Ford was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Upon succession to the presidency, Ford became the only person to hold that office without having been elected either President or Vice President. Prior to 1973, he served for over eight years as the Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives; he was first elected to Congress in 1948 from Michigan's 5th congressional district.

Ford was a member of the House of Representatives for twenty-four years, holding the Grand Rapids congressional district seat from 1949 to 1973. In 1965, Republican members of the House elected him Minority Leader. During his tenure, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission, a special task force set up to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and Ford was chosen as replacement. When Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, Ford assumed the presidency.

Ford remained relatively active in the years after his presidency and continued to make appearances at events of historical and ceremonial significance to the nation, such as presidential inaugurals and memorial services. In 1977, he established the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at Albion College in Albion, Michigan. This institute is designed to give undergraduates training in public policy. In 1981, he opened the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, and the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ford died at the age of 93 years and 165 days on December 26, 2006 at 6:45 p.m Pacific Standard Time (02:45, December 27, UTC) at his home in Rancho Mirage, California of a heart attack. After the funeral service in Michigan (following services at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.), Ford was interred at his Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.