Education
Born and raised in Sheffield, he was apprenticed as an electrician, eventually progressing to a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Huddersfield.
Born and raised in Sheffield, he was apprenticed as an electrician, eventually progressing to a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Huddersfield.
He is the former Chairman, President, and Chief Executive of 3M. He was named to these positions on 7 December 2005. Sir George is Chairman of Arle Capital Limited Liability Partnership, Chairman of Smiths Group plc, and Chairman of Expro International. Buckley came to 3M from Brunswick Corporation where he served as chairman and chief executive officer since June 2000.
Prior to leading Brunswick, Buckley was with Emerson Electric Company as the president of its United States.-based Electrical Motors Division and the Automotive and Precision Motors Division.
He also served as chief technology officer for Emerson’s worldwide group of motor and appliance-related businesses. He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering studied jointly at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Southampton, and an honorary Doctor of Science in Engineering from the University of Huddersfield.
Buckley was knighted in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to industry. In a 2009 letter to 3M shareholders, George West. Buckley discussed the actions he had taken in response to the economic climate, including cutting jobs.
Mr. Buckley remarked that the layoffs that would number "as many as necessary but as few as possible," as well as how 3M "used furloughs, pay cuts, overtime bans, mandatory vacations and stringent incidental cost control to limit the number of layoffs, but in the end some were needed." He reassured shareholders that "In a 5% recession there is still 95% of the business left and winning an increasing share of that business has to be our focus.".