Jerry York, Industry Exec, Straight-Talker and Critic, Dies at 71
By Bill Visnic March 18, 2010Former auto executive Jerome York is dead at the age of 71 after suffering a brain aneurysm on Tuesday.
In the 1970s, York held high executive posts at Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. and was a central player in Chrysler's early 1980s turnaround, yet always was a vocal and strident critic of Detroit automakers for what he characterized as a myopic management culture.
York's seemingly perpetual prediction that Detroit would fall if it did not change essentially came to fruition with last summer's bankruptcies at General Motors Corp. and Chrysler.
York had a colorful career for someone who often was characterized as relentlessly methodical and calculating - a perception that may have cost him the CEO chair at Chrysler when legendarily emotional Lee Iacocca retired in 1992.
Although he forged a large portion of his reputation at IBM, it is in the auto industry where York's best adventures took place. He signed on with Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. in 1995 to wrestle for control of the struggling Chrysler, a battle Kerkorian and York lost. A decade later, Kerkorian began to amass a large holding in what was then General Motors Corp., and he and York lobbied for GM to merge with Japan's Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.
During the time, as Tracinda's representative on GM's board of directors, York continually and publicly prodded GM to downsize, close down its hoary and underperforming brands and energize up its snoozy executive ranks. When GM management wouldn't budge, Kerkorian and York moved on and GM eventually moved on to government-guided bankruptcy - a development York predicted months before it happened.
Through a spokesperson, Kerkorian told the Wall Street Journal York had "boundless courage, charisma and intellect, and a deep appreciation of the automotive industry." - Bill Visnic, senior editor
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