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Noah Dietrich (February 28, 1889 – February 15, 1982) was an American businessman, who was the chief executive officer of the Howard Hughes business empire from 1925 to 1957. Although these dates have been recorded as the official period of employment, Noah Dietrich continued to oversee and make executive decisions for the Hughes industries as late as 1970. According to his own memoirs, he left the Hughes operation over a dispute involving putting more of his income on a capital gains basis. The manuscript of his eventual memoir, Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, may have been a key, if inadvertent, source of novelist Clifford Irving's infamous fake autobiography of Hughes. Early life Dietrich was born on February 28, 1889, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of German-born evangelical Lutheran minister John Dietrich, and the former Sarah Peters. He graduated from Janesville High School in 1906, married in 1910, and became a bank cashier in Maxwell, New Mexico, for the next six months. They then moved to Los Angeles, where he became an auditor for the Los Angeles Suburban Land Co., and then the Janass Investment Co. In 1917, he became an assistant comptroller for Edward L. Doheny Oil companies in New York City. Then Dietrich, along with his family now consisting of his wife and two daughters, decided to move back to Los Angeles, where he worked for the CPA firm of Haskins and Sells, which later merged into what is now Deloitte. There he passed the California Board of Accountancy exam in 1923. Career "Noah Can Do It" In November 1925, at the age of 36, Dietrich met 19-year-old Hughes, who had gained control of Hughes Tool Company after buying out the other family heirs. Started by his father, Howard R. Hughes, Sr., Hughes Tool Company – or Toolco – manufactured oil drilling equipment, especially the multiple-edge, revolving-teeth roller cutter drill bits the elder Hughes invented.: 13–14, 22–23, 29–30  Hughes, according to Dietrich, was "looking for someone with wide general knowledge," "Someone who is resourceful and can solve problems." Questions Hughes asked Dietrich included "how a battleship finds the range on its target?", and to "Explain the principles of the internal combustion engine," both of which Dietrich was able to answer satisfactorily.: 23–24  Dietrich was hired as an executive assistant to explain the production and financial reports issued by Hughes' tool company, eventually becoming Hughes' personal delegate. In his memoir, Dietrich observed that Hughes had little interest in Toolco, other than as a source of revenue. "The tool company," he quoted Hughes as saying, "was my father's success. And it always will be." The company's earnings, however, allowed Hughes to pursue his interest in Hollywood movies.: 33, 76  When still in his early twenties, Hughes told Dietrich, "My first objective is to become the world's number one golfer. Second, the top aviator, and third I want to become the world's most famous motion picture producer. Then, I want you to make me the richest man in the world.": 73  In time, Dietrich came to serve as an executive for most of Hughes' enterprises, including Trans World Airlines (TWA),: 147  RKO Pictures: 237  and Hughes Aircraft.: 255, 257  Dietrich became Hughes' most indispensable executive – "Noah can do it" was, according to Dietrich's memoir, a frequent Hughes expression whenever difficult, if not impossible, wants or needs needed to be met. Some – such as when Dietrich arranged a stock ticker to be installed in a Hughes home – were merely difficult.: 13  Others – such as the time Dietrich arranged the shipment of Hughes' large private liquor stock from his Texas home to his California home during Prohibition – put him at serious risk.: 90–99  Dietrich guided the expansion of Hughes empire by using Hughes Tool Co. profits to purchase real estate, thus avoiding penalties for excess accumulated surplus. Hughes also limited his salary to $50,000 per year, without dividend payments, thus limiting his income tax. All of Hughes' major expenses, planes, automobiles, houses, etc., were also charged to Hughes Tool Co. as business expenses. Hughes even said of Dietrich, "He knows more about my business than I do," referring to Noah as a "genius".: 102–104, 147, 192, 254  Some of Dietrich's duties got him caught in the middle of disputes with members of Hughes' family. During a period when Hughes refused to talk to anyone outside a few business associates, Dietrich recalled, a Hughes' aunt Loomis accused Dietrich – who turned out to have been kept in the dark about Hughes' exact whereabouts himself – "of hiding his body and running things" himself. When Hughes returned, Dietrich wrote, he made a special point of calling this aunt. "I didn't want her to continue believing that I was running the Hughes empire while I kept her nephew in the Deep-freeze." A few years later, while Hughes was recovering from injuries he sustained in the crash of his experimental XF-11 aircraft, Hughes refused a visit from his favorite aunt Annette Lummis, and her husband Dr. Fred Lummis. The uncle turned to Dietrich and said, "Now I can better understand your problems in dealing with Hughes. I don't understand him at all.": 178–181, 194–195  In 1946, Hughes put Dietrich in charge of Toolco. Dietrich proceeded to modernize the company, and was able to increase profits to the point that Hughes Tool Co. made $285,000,000 in profits over the next eight years.: 190–191  Dietrich also discussed in considerable detail the real impetus behind the government's investigation of Hughes Aircraft following World War II. Ostensibly, the probe involved Hughes' failure to deliver the infamous flying boat, the Hercules, a military transport aircraft, to the government on time. Dietrich wrote, however, that the real purpose of the probe may have been neutralizing Hughes, owner of TWA, while rival Pan Am – whose president, Juan Trippe, had implored Maine Senator Owen Brewster to carry it – pushed for a federal law establishing only one official American carrier of international air traffic, and Pan Am becoming that carrier.: 198–199  Dietrich discussed the famous Hughes counterattack before the Senate committee investigating him– and revealed that both his own and Hughes' hotel suites had been bugged during the hearings, allegedly at the behest of Brewster and Trippe. The hearings, and Hughes' legendary triumph over them, helped end both the legislation and Brewster's political career; On Hughes' orders, Dietrich poured money into a challenger's campaign a few years later.: 207–208  By 1948, Dietrich wrote that his duties were getting "immensely onerous", "If an executive had to be fired, 'Noah can do it.' If millions had to be raised overnight, 'Noah can do it.' If a politico or a starlet had to be paid off, 'Noah can do it.' Noah was getting tired of doing it.": 253  Falling out with Hughes Though Dietrich was pulling in a salary of $500,000 per year, his tax burden.... Discover the Aristotle S L Deloitte popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Aristotle S L Deloitte books.