Gary Cowger was months right into a stint as chairman of General Motors’ Adam Opel unit in Germany in 1998 when GM Chairman Jack Smith tapped him to be the corporate’s prime labor negotiator.
A expensive and bitter UAW strike in Flint, Mich., lately had ended and Cowger introduced in Mary Barra — then an govt assistant to Smith — to steer inner communications. Cowger could be Barra’s boss and mentor for almost a decade.
“It was clear she had the intellect and the interpersonal skills that we needed during a pretty tense time,” Cowger mentioned in late 2013, shortly earlier than Barra took over as the primary feminine CEO of a world automaker.
Cowger, a former president of GM North America, died Feb. 17 at his house close to Dallas. He was 75.
Cowger had battled most cancers for 2 years earlier than his demise, Judy DeMars, his former secretary at GM, instructed Automotive News.
He retired from GM in 2009, nearly 45 years after being employed as a co-op scholar in his house state of Kansas. Cowger was president of GM North America from 2001 to 2005, then head of worldwide manufacturing and labor relations till he retired 4 years later.
In that function, he oversaw an effort to construct small vehicles profitably within the U.S. and negotiated main concessions with the UAW forward of the corporate’s 2009 chapter submitting. Those offers helped pave the best way for the emergence of New GM shortly earlier than Cowger retired.
“I was deeply saddened to hear the news of the passing of Gary Cowger,” Barra mentioned in an announcement. “Gary made countless contributions to GM. He was an influential leader and mentor to me and so many others. My thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time.”
In highschool, Cowger had aspired to play baseball at Kansas State University, however a counselor steered he look into GM’s close by Fairfax meeting plant as an alternative.
“You know, you have a lot of technical capability, and you really ought to go down and talk to General Motors,” Cowger recalled the counselor telling him.
So he enrolled within the General Motors Institute — now referred to as Kettering University — and did co-op work on the Fairfax plant, the place he molded seats and hung doorways.
After incomes his bachelor’s diploma from GMI in 1970 and a grasp’s diploma in administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, Cowger’s jobs at GM included supervisor of the Lordstown, Ohio, meeting advanced and Cadillac’s manufacturing chief.
At the Lordstown plant, lengthy a hotbed of labor strife, Cowger eased tensions.
“It was unheard of for a plant manager to come over there,” Jim Graham, who was president of UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, instructed Automotive News in 1998. “Cowger demanded that management sit down with the union on a weekly basis. We had an open line of communication.”
In 1994, Cowger grew to become president and managing director of GM de Mexico. In 4 years, he grew GM into the market chief by almost doubling its share.
He instructed Automotive News in 2007 that he thought of the task his best skilled achievement.
As GM’s North American president, Cowger labored with Vice Chairman Bob Lutz to simplify the product growth course of and invigorate the corporate’s lineup. He gave his management workforce lapel pins with the quantity “29” to indicate the corporate’s 29 p.c U.S. market share goal and renewed GM’s deal with constructing high quality automobiles.
“We have to have every product be ‘gotta have,’ that you walk up to it and you want to own it,” Cowger mentioned in 2002. “Our goal is to make every product that we put out a must-have product.”
Lindsay VanHulle contributed to this report.
Source: www.autonews.com