Uncle Earl urged him to apply at Chrysler and John was accepted to Chrysler Institute of Engineering.
Outsiders like Alan Mulally at Ford and Bob Nardelli at Chrysler might be just what Detroit needs now.
Confronting some of the same cost issues, Zetsche slashed 27, 000 jobs at Chrysler and showed longtime managers the door.
We - at Chrysler, we make the Jeep Caliber - Dodge Caliber, I'm sorry, Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot.
At Chrysler, CEO Robert Nardelli has been on the scene just a year.
Think of it: five years ago, there were barely cars at Chrysler, where three-quarters of its sales were light trucks.
It's a tantalizing prospect that's being tossed around Detroit, but insiders at Chrysler suggest it's too valuable a jewel to concede.
If there is one thing that has held true at Chrysler over the years, it is the sanctity of the iconic Jeep brand.
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He worked at Chrysler for less than a year, before moving on to Packard and to GM, where he found his greatest success.
He spent 33 years in the auto industry, where he rose to vice chairman at Chrysler, helping Lee Iacocca turn that company around.
Union leaders, initially aghast at Chrysler's proposal to let suppliers run the body and paint shops, saw they had little choice but to listen.
On a recent morning Nardelli sat alone in the front row of the 250-seat amphitheater at Chrysler's headquarters for a monthly quality review session.
Donoughe is fresh off a 24-year stint at Chrysler, where he was most recently in charge of revamping all of the company's mid-size sedans.
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Former Chrysler President Wolfgang Bernhard, who, with Zetsche, helped lead an earlier turnaround at Chrysler, has joined Cerberus and will serve as an adviser to Chrysler.
But he was paid nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to leave and quickly moved to the top slot at Chrysler, which then went bankrupt.
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On a recent fall day the two new bosses at Chrysler traveled to the company's test track in Chelsea, Michigan, an hour's drive west of Detroit.
Bernhard, until recently the president of Volkswagen, was offered the job of non-executive chairman at Chrysler but turned it down for personal reasons, the company said.
The reason I came to Toledo was to congratulate Jill and her co-workers on the turnaround they helped bring about at Chrysler and throughout the auto industry.
Marchionne has a reputation as a brilliant turnaround specialist for bringing Fiat back from near-death almost a decade ago and then doing it again at Chrysler more recently.
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At Chrysler Nardelli started immediately poking his nose everywhere.
Cerberus intends to keep the current management team at Chrysler, including Chief Executive Thomas LaSorda , who in February announced a recovery and transformation plan aimed at restoring profits by next year.
At Chrysler and John Deere, RWD designed systems that enable dealership repairmen to use the Internet to tap into databases at the parent company for help when they're repairing cars and construction equipment.
Supporting the American auto industry required making some tough decisions, but I was not willing to walk away from the workers at Chrysler and the communities that rely on this iconic American company.
After he graduated from the University of Michigan and served in the army, Uncle Earl got my father a job in the engineering department at Chrysler, where he too worked for his entire career.
Two executives behind the Mustang, Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich, later were fired by Ford CEO Henry Ford II and wound up at Chrysler, which in 1980 was saved by America's first automotive bailout.
But McCurry, who stayed affiliated after his 1993 retirement, was more a car man than a company man: He'd spent an earlier career at Chrysler, where he revived sales after the first energy crisis.
Bernhard, until recently the president of Volkswagen (other-otc: VLKAF - news - people ), was offered the job of non-executive chairman at Chrysler but turned it down for personal reasons, the company said.
The average age of GM's workforce is 50 (compared to 45 at Ford, and 46 at Chrysler), and 64% of GM workers are eligible to retire within five years (vs. 31% at Ford, and 30% at Chrysler).
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