On November 10, 2025, the United States Marine Corps celebrates its 250th anniversary, marking two and a half centuries of honor, courage, and commitment. Just a year later, in 2026, Ford will mark a milestone of its own: the 30th anniversary of the Ford Expedition® SUV. These two anniversaries are linked by more than just proximity on the calendar. They are connected by a story of pride and tribute.

The name Expedition was not chosen from a list at random. It was a deliberate homage to the "go anywhere, do anything" expeditionary spirit of the U.S. Marines. The man who made that connection is Leo V. Williams III, a retired Major General in the Marine Corps Reserve and the former Ford marketing manager who was tasked with naming the vehicle.

In an interview with Ford From the Road, Williams shares the story of how his pride in the Marine Corps led to the naming of one of Ford's most iconic SUVs.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your background and your career at Ford?

A: I'm a Naval Academy graduate, class of 1970. I took my commission in the United States Marine Corps and served as an infantry and artillery officer until 1978. During that time, I also earned my master's degree in business administration. This led to an offer from Ford Motor Company in September 1978, in the truck operations product planning group. It was a fantastic opportunity. Many of us had engineering degrees, master's degrees, and military service backgrounds. We were the concept developers for the F-150 pickups and new products like the Aerostar minivan and the first Ford Explorer® SUV. This experience in both marketing and product development led to my next opportunity: the SUV that followed the Explorer, the Ford Expedition.

Q: So as Ford was preparing to launch this new, larger SUV, how did the naming process begin?

A: We knew we were going to develop a full range of SUVs. The Explorer had been a tremendous success, and the decision was made that the next vehicle would be larger. At that point, the vehicle was simply known by its code, UN93. As the launch marketing manager, it was one of my responsibilities to recommend the name. The strategy was to follow the success of the Explorer, so we decided the name should start with "EX."

Q: How did that "EX" strategy lead you to the name Expedition?

A: At the time, I was a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, and everyone knew how proud I was of being a United States Marine. The idea for the name was second nature to me. We wanted the public to perceive this new vehicle as a "go anywhere, do anything" kind of vehicle. In the Marines, when we say we are "expeditionary," it means we go anywhere, we do anything for an extended period of time. The image we wanted for the vehicle and the image the Marine Corps has had for its entire existence — they just meshed perfectly. It was pretty easy for me to suggest to my team that we name this new vehicle the Expedition.

“The image we wanted for the [Expedition] and the image the Marine Corps had for its entire existence — they just meshed perfectly.”

Leo V. Williams III

Q: What was the reaction from your team and from Ford's leadership?

A: There really was no conversation; it just made sense to the team, so we pushed it up the chain. At the time, Ross Roberts was the head of Ford Division, and Bob Rewey was the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales. I knew they were both Army veterans, and we would occasionally talk about our military experiences. When the suggestion came to them, they both smiled and said, "Yeah, this makes sense to us." The rest is the soon-to-be 30-year history of the Expedition.

Q: That sounds like a uniquely smooth process. How did it compare to naming the other SUVs in the "EX" family, like the Excursion and the Escape® SUV?

A: They were not nearly so simple. With Excursion, we probably went through 10 to 12 possible names before we landed on one that fit its rugged, "ready to do the work" character. For the smaller SUV, the Escape, I actually wanted to take a risk and name it "E-X-C-A-P-E." This was around the time hip-hop was becoming popular and automotive names were getting more creative. But my bosses got bogged down in the fact that it wasn't a real word they could find in a dictionary. They liked the concept of being able to "escape" the everyday world, so we kept the name but lost the unique spelling.

Q: As a Marine veteran, how does it make you feel to have created such a direct and lasting connection between a popular vehicle and your service?

A: Every day that I see an Expedition on the road — and that's every day — my chest just sticks out. It’s a wonderful sense of pride and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. To know that it has been around for a very long time and will likely be around for many years longer... that is something that I am really, really proud of.

Q: Besides the name, were there any other aspects of the Expedition's design or engineering that were influenced by the military?

A: I wouldn't say it was directly driven by the military, but the overall ruggedness and off-road capability were top of mind as we developed all of our SUVs. At that point, Jeep was a major competitor, and their image was certainly more rugged than ours. We wanted customers to know that what they might be looking for in a Jeep, they could also get in a Ford Motor Company product.