|
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.
|
