Two American nuns were also killed, both belonging to the Maryknoll congregation.
After his undergraduate studies, he spent a year in a Maryknoll novitiate in Bedford, Massachusetts.
Ford was a relative of Bishop Francis Xavier Ford, M.M., a missionary killed during the Korean War, Sister Ita Ford, M.M., a missionary murdered in El Salvador in 1980, and her brother, William P. Ford, Jr.
In 1998, Bishop Francis DiLorenzo appointed him as pastor of Sacred Heart Church and Maryknoll School in Punahou.
The full-time college student at Maryknoll College (now Miriam College) and part-time Auggie Cordero model is a granddaughter of Manuel Roxas, fifth President of the Philippines.
Maryknoll High School of Lambajon, also known as Maryknoll La Salle, is a De La Salle-supervised school located in Baganga, Davao Oriental, Philippines.
He received his episcopal consecration on the following 3 October from Archbishop Kinam Ro, with Bishops James Pardy, MM, and Peter Han Kong-ryel serving as co-consecrators, in the Church of the Holy Family in Cheongju.