Hugh L. Gordon was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1922. He joined the Army Air Corps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, flying a Northrup P-61. During fifteen months of combat duty, Gordon earned several decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross. On discharge from the Army, he entered Virginia Polytechnic Institute and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering in 1950 and a Master of Science degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1951. Gordon joined the Lockheed-Georgia Company in 1951 as a Manufacturing Technician. He worked in a variety of positions within the company relating to labor and industrial relations, rising to the position of Director of Personnel. Gordon retired from Lockheed-Georgia in 1988. Gordon was active in community and business organizations. He was a founding member of the Atlanta Employers’ Voluntary Merit Employment Association (MEA) and the Private Industry Council of Atlanta (PIC). He also served as a Regional Executive for Region 4 of the National Alliance of Businessmen from 1974 to 1978.

Hugh Gordon assembled the collection over a period of years as the resource for a book project. As part of the donor agreement with the Archives, Gordon requested that the collection be named for himself, J. Joseph Kruse, and Fred R. Wentzel. It consists of ten series, which represent accessions from different sources.