George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician. He was chairman of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. He is the father of former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and the husband of former Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Lenore Romney. Romney was born to American parents in the Mormon colonies in Mexico. His family moved back to the United States when he was a child, ending up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they struggled during the Great Depression. Romney worked in a number of jobs, served as a Mormon missionary in England and Scotland, and attended two universities in the U.S. but did not graduate from either. In 1939 he moved to Detroit and joined the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, where he served as the chief spokesperson for the automobile industryduring World War II.Christ of Latter-day Saints. Romney entered politics by participating in a state constitutional convention to rewrite the Michigan Constitution during 1961 1962.