Pontiac Division Operations - Behind The Scenes At Pontiac

Design-Development Engineers worked across both the Engineering and Divisional staff areas. As a result, they interfaced with people in departments such as Manufacturing, Reliability and Purchasing. They also worked with the designers and actually released the parts.

The buck stopped with them. These people had very responsible positions. A name you might recognize in this area is Development Engineer Skip McCully, with whom I worked in 1967 and 1969. He worked on pistons and rings (among other things), and taught me about them. Staff Engineer for Engines, Mac McKellar, also taught me a lot when I began working with him in 1969.

Though technical mentoring was essential, it was also important to have a career mentor. For me, this was Russ Gee. Beginning in 1970, Experimental Engineer Russ Gee made sure I got important, high-visibility assignments. For example, while I was in the Experimental Engine Test Group, he made me the project manager for unleaded fuel in 1970.

The Pontiac team was the first in the corporation to understand the exhaust valve seat wear phenomenon when unleaded fuel was used. When I was in the Design-Development group in 1974, Russ made me the project manager for the 2.5L (151ci) four-cylinder engine. I gave up my SD-455 duties, among others, to take this on. Developing a four-cylinder engine is much more difficult than a V-8. I received a GM Boss Kettering Award for some aspects of this work.

This project manager assignment gave me a lot of visibility to the other Pontiac staffs and was important to my overall advancement. I've never considered myself to be "political," but I was conscious of politics, and usually tried to avoid shooting myself in the foot. On the other hand, I assumed I was able to do things until I got my hand slapped.

To become Eighth Level at Pontiac (usually the first management level), at least two other staffs at Pontiac had to agree with the promotion. In my case, Project Manager included working with Sales and Public Relations (PR), as well as my other normal contacts with Manufacturing, Reliability, and Purchasing. This probably helped secure my eventual promotion to Supervisor of the Experimental Powertrain Group in 1978.

To get an unclassified (this is the term for the executives) promotion to the next level, you had to actually spend time in the other Pontiac staffs. In my case, I ran Service Engineering (in Sales) and Quality Engineering (in Reliability). Both of the positions were at the Eighth Level. In Service Engineering, I got to spend some time visiting dealers nationwide.

I then went back to Engineering at Eighth Level in 1980, but with a division-wide assignment. This was to develop Value Engineering with a thrust on quality, rather than cost. It included involvement with our famous outside consultant, Dr. W. Edwards Deming. In this assignment, I was eventually promoted to "unclassified" in 1981, and also picked up responsibility for Engineering personnel, budget, and facilities.

Besides my existing Mechanical Engineering degree (BSME), I attended night school for my Master of Business Administration (MBA). As a result of all these experiences, my engineer's "blinders" were somewhat peeled back. It really does help to "walk a mile in another person's shoes." Relatively few people got to do all this.

I was moved to Staff Engineer for Trans-mission and Axle in 1982, during a period when GM was having some transmission difficulties. Pontiac Engineering leadership wanted someone (me) without a transmission background in this job. The hope was that I would have no preconceived notions.

In this assignment, there was a strong direction to decrease Firebird axle noise. This led to our using the Borg-Warner Australia axle. Depending on Australian currency fluctuations, I was either a hero or a bum to the financial people. Bill Hoglund (the general manager) finally got them off my back. The mission was to fix the Firebird axle noise, and we did.