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Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca (born October 15, 1924) is an American industrialist
most commonly known for his revival of the Chrysler brand in the 1980s when he was
the CEO. Among the most widely recognized businessmen in the world, he was a
passionate advocate of U.S. business exports during the 1980s. He is the author or
co-author of several books, including Iacocca: An Autobiography (with William
Novak), and Where have all the Leaders Gone?
 Early
life
Iacocca was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania to Nicola and Antoinette (Perrotto)
Iacocca, Italian immigrants who had settled in Pennsylvania's steel making belt.
Iacocca graduated from Allentown's William Allen High School and Lehigh University
in neighboring Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a degree in industrial engineering. He
is an alumnus of Theta Chi Fraternity. After graduating from Lehigh, he won the
Wallace Memorial Fellowship and went to Princeton University, where he took his
electives in politics and plastics. He then began a career at Ford Motor Company as
an engineer. Eventually becoming dissatisfied with that job, he switched career
paths at Ford, entering the company's sales force. He was quite successful in
sales, and he moved up through the ranks of Ford, moving ultimately to product
development.
Iacocca was married to Mary McCleary in 1956. McCleary died in 1984 after a
decades-long struggle with diabetes. Both before and after her death, Iacocca
became a strong advocate for better medical treatment of diabetes patients, who
frequently faced debilitating and fatal complications. Iacocca married his second
wife Peggy Johnson on 17-Apr-1986 and they were divorced in 1987 - he had the
marriage annulled after 19 months of marriage. He married a third wife, Darrien
Earle, in 1991. They were divorced 3 years later in 1994.
Ford
Iacocca joined Ford in the early 1950s and after a brief stint on engineering, he
quickly asked to be moved to sales and marketing where his career flourished. While
working in a local district for sales, Iacocca gained national recognition in 1956
with his "56 for 56" campaign, offering $56 monthly payment loans for 1956 model
year cars. His campaign went national and Iacocca was called to Dearborn where he
quickly moved through the ranks to become President of the Ford Division on his
40th birthday, October 15, 1964.
Iacocca was involved with the design of several successful Ford automobiles, most
notably the Ford Mustang. Also, he was responsible for the Lincoln Continental Mark
III, the Ford Fiesta and the revival of the Mercury brand in the late 1960's,
including the introduction of the Mercury Cougar and Mercury Marquis. He was also
the "moving force," as one court put it, behind the notorious Ford Pinto . He
promoted other ideas which did not reach the marketplace as Ford products. These
included cars ultimately introduced by Chrysler- the K car and the minivan.
Eventually, he became the president of the Ford Motor Company, but he clashed with
Henry Ford II and ultimately, in 1978, he was fired by Henry II, despite Ford
posting a $2 billion profit for the year.
Chrysler
After being fired at Ford, Lee was aggressively courted by the Chrysler
Corporation, which was on the verge of going out of business (at the time, the
company was losing millions due to recalls of the Chrysler F platform vehicles, the
Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare). Iacocca joined Chrysler and began rebuilding the
entire company from the ground up, laying off many workers, selling Chrysler's
loss-making European division to Peugeot, and bringing in many former associates
from Ford. Also from Ford, Iacocca brought to Chrysler the MiniMax project which
turned into the wildly successful minivan. Interestingly, Henry Ford II wanted
nothing to do with the MiniMax, making it a doomed project at Ford. Hal Sperlich,
the driving force behind the MiniMax at Ford had been fired a few months before
Iacocca and was waiting for him at Chrysler to make automotive history.
Iacocca started as Chrysler's chairman, and began a heavy restructuring of
Chrysler. At the time Iacocca took over, Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy,
as it was focusing most of its money on large, fuel thirsty cars that the public
didn't want due to a fuel crisis at the time. First, Iacocca announced plant
closures, job layoffs, and his plans for the company. His next move was cutting
several large models, which were heavily unprofitable, and put the subcompact Dodge
Omni and Plymouth Horizon into production. The Omni and Horizon became instant
hits, selling over 300,000 units each their debut year, showing what was to come
for Chrysler - yet somewhat ironically the Omni and Horizon had been designed by
the European division of the company which Iacocca had axed in 1978.
Realizing that the company would go out of business if it did not receive a
significant amount of money to turn the company around, Iacocca approached the
United States Congress in 1979 and asked for a loan guarantee. While it is
sometimes said that Congress lent Chrysler the money, it, in fact, only guaranteed
the loans. Most thought this was an unprecedented move, but Iacocca pointed to the
government bail-outs of the airline and railroad industries, arguing that more jobs
were at stake in Chrysler's possible demise. In the end, though the decision was
controversial, Iacocca received the loan guarantee from the government.
After receiving this reprieve, Chrysler released the first of the K-Car line, the
Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant in 1981, compact automobiles based on design
proposals that Ford had rejected during Iacocca's tenure there. Coming right after
the oil crisis of the 1970s, these small, efficient and inexpensive, front-wheel
drive cars sold rapidly. In addition, two years later Chrysler released the
minivan, based on a proposal of a key engineering executive Hal Sperlich who joined
Chrysler after being dismissed by Ford; to this day, Chrysler leads the automobile
industry in minivan sales. Because of these three cars, and the reforms Iacocca
implemented, the company turned around quickly and was able to repay the
government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected.
Iacocca was also responsible for Chrysler's acquisition of AMC in 1987, which
brought the profitable Jeep division under Chrysler's corporate umbrella. It also
created the short-lived Eagle division, formed from the remnants of AMC. By this
time, AMC had already finished most of the work with the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which
Iacocca desperately wanted. The Grand Cherokee would not be released until 1992 for
the 1993 model year, at which time Iacocca left Chrysler.
Other work
and activities
In May 1982, Ronald Reagan appointed Iacocca to head the Statue of Liberty-Ellis
Island Foundation, which was created to raise funds for the renovation and
preservation of the Statue of Liberty. He continues to serve on the board of the
foundation.
In 1984, Iacocca co-authored (with William Novak) his autobiography, titled
Iacocca: An Autobiography. It was a hugely successful book, proving to be the best
selling non-fiction hardback book of 1984 and 1985. The proceeds of the book's
sales benefitted diabetes research.
Iacocca appeared on an episode of Miami Vice, playing Park Commissioner Lido in
episode #44 (titled Son and Lovers) on May 9, 1986. The name of the character is a
play on his birth name.
In 1988, Iacocca co-authored (with Sonny Kleinfeld) Talking Straight , a book meant
as a counter-balance to Akio Morita's Made in Japan, a non-fiction book praising
Japan's post-war hard-working culture. Talking Straight praised the innovation and
creativity of Americans.
He was considered for appointment to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant in 1991 by
the death of H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania, but declined.
In 1999 Iacocca was the head of EV Global Motors Co. a company formed to develop
and market electric bikes with a top speed of 15 mph and a range of 20 miles
between recharging at wall outlets.
Politically, Iacocca supported the successful Republican candidate George W. Bush
in the 2000 presidential election. In the 2004 presidential election, however, he
endorsed Bush's unsuccessful opponent, Democrat John Kerry. Most recently, in
Michigan's 2006 Gubernatorial race, Iacocca appeared in televised political ads
endorsing Republican candidate Dick DeVos, who lost. He has endorsed New Mexico
Governor Bill Richardson for President in the 2008 Presidential Election.
Following the death of Iacocca's wife from diabetes, he has become an active
supporter of research to find a cure for the disease, and has been one of the main
patrons of the innovative diabetes research of Denise Faustman at Massachusetts
General Hospital. In 2000, Iacocca founded Olivio Premium Products, which
manufactures the Olivio line of food products made from olive oil. He donates all
profits from the company to diabetes research. In 2004, Iacocca launched Join Lee
Now, a national grassroots campaign that will bring Faustman's research to human
clinical trials in 2006.
Iacocca has been an advocate of "Nourish the Children", an initiative of Nu Skin
Enterprises, since its inception in 2002. He is currently its chairman. He takes an
active interest in the initiative and helped to donate a generator for the Malawi,
Africa VitaMeal plant.
On May 17, 2007, Simon & Schuster published Iacocca's new book, Where Have All
the Leaders Gone? co-written with Catherine Whitney . An article with the same
title, and same two co-authors, has recently appeared. In the book, Lee writes:
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the
hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of
clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate
gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less
build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their
heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to
be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite:
Throw the bums out!
On December 3, 2007, Mr. Iacocca launched www.iacocca.com a web site for others to
join him in the conversation leading up to the 2008 Presidential elections. The
site serves as an online forum designed to encourage open dialogue around the
challenges of our time as we enter the homestretch of the Presidential election
season.
“We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff,”
Mr. Iacocca asserts. With his new website, the auto industry legend seeks to focus
on key issues in which he feels government leaders are missing the boat.
The site will enable visitors to weigh in on topics from the 2008 presidential
election to what soaring health care costs are doing to America, to the reasons we
lag so far behind in developing alternative energy sources and hybrid vehicles.
The web site also serves as an online extension to Mr. Iacocca’s 2007 book, Where
Have All the Leaders Gone. The site features an interactive scorecard that allows
users to rate presidential candidates by the qualities Mr. Iacocca feels every true
leader should possess. Mr. Iacocca has dubbed these his Nine C’s: curiosity,
creativity, communication, character, courage, conviction, charisma, competence and
common sense.
Visitors to the website will be able to grade the candidates vying for the 2008
nomination on the Nine C’s and have the results tabulated in real time.
Another recurring feature of the site will be a blog authored by Mr. Iacocca. inin
published Iacocca's new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
"Return" to
Chrysler
In July 2005, Iacocca returned to the airwaves as Chrysler's pitchman, along with
stars such as Jason Alexander and Snoop Dogg, to promote Chrysler's "Employee
Pricing Plus" program; the ads reprise the "If you can find a better car, buy it"
line that was Iacocca's trademark in the 1980s. In return for his services, Iacocca
and DaimlerChrysler agreed that his fees, plus a $1 donation per vehicle sold from
July 1 through December 31, 2005, would be donated to the Iacocca Foundation for
diabetes research. Iacocca appeared in a 2005 Iacocca/Chrysler commercial with an
actress, not his actual granddaughter, which many people think.
In popular
culture
Iacocca's legacy can be noted by parodies and mentions in film and other media. In
the 1987 movie, RoboCop, which takes place in future Detroit, one "Mediabreak"
reports an incident that took place at fictitious "Lee Iacocca Elementary School."
More recently, in the The Office episode "Cocktails", Michael Scott toasts with a
glass of 20-year, single malt scotch, "To Mr. Iacocca and his failed experiment,
the De Lorean." (Iacocca had nothing to do with the De Lorean car. John De Lorean,
the automotive engineer, worked for Packard and GM, but not Chrysler.)
Incidentally, one of the writers, producers, and stars of The Office is B.J. Novak,
whose father is William Novak, co-author of Iacocca's autobiography.
Chrysler's loan guarantee controversy was parodied by folk singer Tom Paxton in his
song "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler" as a (not particularly serious) way for
individuals to get out of their own financial problems. Part of the chorus of the
song goes, "I will tell some power broker/What he did for Iacocca/Will be perfectly
acceptable to me." Iacocca was further referenced in the long-time unreleased Neil
Young song 'Ordinary People' refers to 'Lee Iacocca people'. It was released on the
album Chrome Dreams II in October 2007.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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