Rick Wagoner
Rick Wagoner
George Richard "Rick" Wagoner, Jr.is an American businessman and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. Wagoner resigned as Chairman and CEO at General Motors on March 29, 2009, at the request of the White House. The latter part of Wagoner's tenure as CEO of General Motors found him under heavy criticism as the market valuation of GM went down by more than 90% and the company lost more than $82 billion USD. This led to his being...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth9 February 1953
CountryUnited States of America
In order to improve financial results in 2006 and 2007, we are moving quickly to implement several important actions that will address these weaknesses in North America. And we have a good line of sight on the steps we need to take to further reduce structural costs on a global basis that will position GM for long-term success.
I'm like Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing. We are trying to share ideas around the world. We don't just come up with a great idea in Brazil and ignore it in the rest of the world.
In '02 we had another good year in improving productivity in salaried work force. What we're trying to do is make this a regular mind set around here, ... You can't have an ounce of fat these days and meet the pricing and the investments and the profitability targets we're shooting for.
While our 'pay-for-performance' executive compensation system is already structured to significantly reduce total compensation when our business performance and stock price are underperforming, we all agreed that this is the right step to take at this time.
Any time GM and UAW has something going on, we're all curious about how that may affect us,
The big and the fast beat the small and the fast. If you check out the NBA today, they're big and fast.
The automotive market in North America remains very competitive, and our results reflect that, ... Improving market share and profitability remain an important priority.
It's clear that the U.S. market and economic conditions have become significantly more uncertain. Overall we remain very bullish on the prospects for the auto industry in the U.S. and globally but at this point we are viewing the U.S. economy and auto market environment with considerable caution.
Don't worry about planning every step of your life.
Oklahoma City, (which makes the mid-sized SUV) is a very good plant but a classic example of ... just having too much capacity in that segment, ... That's why that plant in on the list today. We don't have any plants left that aren't very high quality and quite productive. I'm sure I'm not going to satisfy any plant as why they've been chosen to be on the list.
I want to be clear I'm not saying we expect the government to pick these expenses up. I think they've made it very clear they don't intend to do that, at least the current administration.
It was a year in which two significant fundamental weaknesses in our North American operations were fully exposed - our huge legacy cost burden and our inability to adjust structural costs in line with revenue.
These actions are necessary for GM to get its costs in line with our major global competitors,
These actions are necessary for G.M. to get its costs in line with our major global competitors.