This article originally published June 28, 2018.

(CNN Business) His parents bear the names Ford and Firestone and he says gasoline runs in his veins. But the decision to work at the company his great-grandfather Henry Ford founded was not one that came easily to Bill Ford, Jr.

An avid environmentalist, the executive chairman of one of America's "Big Three" automakers says he felt anything but welcomed when he first joined Ford Motor Co. in the 1970s.

"I was just appalled at the mentality that existed throughout the company towards the environment and, frankly, towards anything outside of Detroit," Ford tells CNN's Poppy Harlow in the latest episode of Boss Files . "Ford was, the entire auto industry was, a very insular culture. And it really shocked me. And I decided to see if I could help change that. And in the early years, there was a lot of frustration."

He recalls that even his own company asked him to stop hanging out with "environmental wackos" and told him to distance himself from "any known or suspected environmentalists."

"I almost left, actually, a couple times to pursue my environmental passions, but I had friends from the environmental community say to me, 'Look, if you can affect change internally you can do so much more than you ever could outside. So, if you can hang in there, do try to do it,'" says Ford.

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