Harold Arundel Lafount (January 5, 1880 – October 21, 1952) was an American businessman who served on the Federal Radio Commission from 1927 to 1934. He was the father of Lenore Romney; the father-in-law of businessman and politician George W. Romney; and the maternal grandfather of businessman and politician Mitt Romney.
English-born, Lafount moved to the United States as a teenager and grew up in Utah. He managed several local businesses and was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Appointed to the Federal Radio Commission by President Calvin Coolidge, he was in charge of the zone covering the Western United States. Lafount played an important part in developments and decisions regarding the regulation of the broadcasting industry in the U.S., favoring perspectives that saw radio broadcasting as a fundamentally commercial enterprise. He was also an early influence in making radio airtime available to political candidates and parties.
Lafount later managed a number of well-known radio stations in the northeastern United States on behalf of Arde Bulova and served as president of the National Independent Broadcasters. A licensing issue regarding a station Lafount co-owned resulted in a protracted regulatory and legal matter that was finally decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Early life and education, marriage and family
Lafount was born in Aston town within Birmingham, England, on January 5, 1880, the son of Robert Arthur Lafount, originally from Belbroughton, Worcestershire, and mother Emily Ethel (Hewitt). He had at least one sibling, a sister called Elsie. The family came with Mormon missionaries to the United States in 1893 and settled in Utah.
Lafount gained a degree in civil engineering from Utah State Agricultural College. He returned to England as a Mormon missionary himself, arriving in Liverpool in August 1902 and being dispatched to Sheffield. However, he returned to the U.S. from Sheffield ahead of schedule in May 1903 due to illness.
On October 28, 1903, Lafount married Alma Luella Robison (born in Montpelier, Idaho, in 1882).
They had four daughters: Elsie (born c. 1906), Lenore (born 1908), Constance (born c. 1911), and Ruth (born c. 1913).
Early career
Lafount first worked as an assistant in his father's hardware store in Logan, Utah, known as the Lafount Hardware Company, and then worked as its manager. He was in the hardware business for twelve years starting in 1903.
Beginning in 1909, while still living in Logan, Lafount held the position of general manager at the newly founded Pacific Land & Water Company of Salt Lake City, which acquired and developed land for agricultural and mining purposes. The company also had offices in Logan; on one trip between the two cities, he escaped with only bruises when the gasoline tank of his automobile exploded, hurling him some forty feet. Lafount worked at Pacific Land & Water for ten years. He was then a receiver for the Sevier River Land and Water Company from 1923 to 1927. By the mid-1920s, he was a manufacturer of earphones for crystal radio receivers. He knew prominent people socially, including LDS Church President Heber J. Grant and U.S. Senator from Utah Reed Smoot.
During the 1910s, the Lafount family had moved from Logan to Salt Lake City, where they lived in a large brick house located at Fifteenth South and Ninth East.
From 1919 to 1924, Lafount was bishop of the ward (ecclesiastical and administrative head of his congregation) in the same area where he lived. His wife worked for the church, was a leader in social charities, and gave well-received dramatic readings.
Daughter Lenore later described Harold as "a man of temper and drive" who was prone to angry outbursts.
Federal Radio Commission
Upon the recommendation of Senator Smoot, in November 1927, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Lafount to the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), a new federal body created by the Radio Act of 1927 to regulate radio use in the United States, and the first such separate agency. The commission had gotten off to a slow start earlier that year due to problems with vacancies; Lafount was slotted for the Fifth Zone of the new entity, to replace original commissioner John F. Dillon, who had died shortly after taking that position. News of the appointment came as a surprise to the other members of the commission, since Lafount had little presence in the radio industry.
Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., for his new position, Lafount wanted to thank the president personally. Told by an appointment secretary that he would need a new morning suit, Lafount spent $175 to get one. After Lafount went to the White House and gave a brief speech of thanks, President Coolidge in response said only, "In case of doubt read the law. Good-day, sir." Lafount began traveling and working for the commission right away. The United States Senate subsequently confirmed Lafount by voice vote on March 30, 1928. Three other commissioners were confirmed at the same time, two by voice votes.
Lafount's zone covered the Rocky Mountain and Pacific states as well as the territories of Hawaii and Alaska.
He traveled frequently, as part of visiting all kinds of radio stations in his large territory. At one point during 1927–1928 he took an 8,200 miles (13,200 km) trip in the zone, where he interviewed over 700 people, including over 100 listeners, representing over 100 radio stations. At another time during 1930 he climbed to high elevations in southern Colorado to hear the reception that ranchers, sheepherders, and rangers received. Some smaller radio stations had unsponsored time available, and he proposed the creation of citizen-based advisory boards to create programming for the benefit of community interests for such stations. Overall, however, he felt that too many small stations with weak signals were blocking reception of larger stations, and came to the conclusion that the number of stations should be reduced and the signals of the larger stations strengthened.
Over time, the commissioners' activities became less bound to their particular geographies.
Subsequent radio industry career; second marriage
Lafount stayed on the FRC until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934, but was not appointed to that body.
The FRC role had enabled Lafount to know not just many government figures but also the people running the growing broadcasting industry.
Upon leaving the FRC, he became head of the broadcasting interests of the Bulova Watch Company. Arde Bulova, chairman of the company, either owned or partly owned several radio stations.
On September 8, 1938, Lafount's wife Alma died in Washington, D. C. at the age of 56.
He then married Gladys MacDonald on September 6, 1939, but she died in New York on June 14, 1943, at the age of 40. During these years, Lafount split his time among residences in New York, Washington, and Salt Lake City.
By 1941, Lafount was president of the National Independent Broadcasters, which represented some 200 radio stations (out of 800 total in the nation), focusing on those that were not affiliated with any network.
During World War II, Lafount served as chairman of the radio committee within the New York City War Fund and subsequently was a member of the radio committee within the National War Fund.
In 1942, Lafount became president of the newly founded, New York-based Atlantic Coast Network, a regional network of radio stations, most of which Arde Bulova had an interest in. These included the well-known stations WNEW in New York, WPEN in Philadelphia, WELI in New Haven, WNBC in Hartford, WFCI in Providence, and WCOP in Boston with WFBR in Baltimore and WWDC in Washington soon joining. He maintained this position through at least the late 1940s.
He served as vice-president of the Wodaam Corporation, which ran WOV, and the Greater New York Broadcasting Corporation, which ran WNEW; both were part of the larger Bulova interests. He was also vice president of WNBC, a different station with those call letters in New Britain, Connecticut, and the Fifth-Forty-Sixth Corporation.
Death and family legacy
Lafount died in Detroit, Michigan, on October 21, 1952, at age 72 in the home of his daughter Lenore. He was survived by his mother, his sister, and his four daughters. Broadcasting magazine wrote upon his passing that "Lafount was an important influence in the early development of radio regulation."
George Romney had first moved to Washington, D.C., in 1929 in order to remain near Lenore Lafount following her father's appointment to the FRC. They married in 1931. Social connections through the Lafounts enabled George to gain greater visibility in Washington business and political circles during the 1930s. By the late 1940s, Harold Lafount had been so impressed with his son-in-law that he asked lawyers to investigate whether the latter's Mexican birth would still make him eligible to run for president; they reported in the affirmative.
Following Lafount's death, George became chairman and president of American Motors Corporation and Governor of Michigan. He did indeed run for president in 1968, but the campaign was unsuccessful, after which he became U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. George's son, Mitt Romney (of whom Lafount is the maternal grandfather), became cofounder and CEO of Bain Capital, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, Governor of Massachusetts, Republican Party nominee in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, and United States Senator from Utah.