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
While this sounds like a large number, we recognize that it only goes part of the way we need to go to put GM North America in the fully competitive position that is necessary to maintain and enhance our future viability and growth.
To make this happen, we need to bring down costs and build the necessary infrastructure -- and the best way to do that is by business and government working together.
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.
This is a difficult but necessary decision, and it was made only after the greatest deliberation. A number of other U.S. companies have already taken similar action in the face of these rising costs and increasing global competition. In particular, U.S. health-care costs continue to rise at high rates. When these benefits were conceived decades ago, no one could have foreseen the explosive cost inflation that we have been experiencing in recent years. These costs are simply not sustainable.
The decisions we are announcing today were very difficult to reach because of their impact on our employees and the communities where we live and work. But these actions are necessary for G.M. to get its costs in line with our major global competitors.
In his current assignment, Mike has led the team that has helped GM gain back market share in California. He's built strong relationships with dealers and employees in creating marketing initiatives, all of which should prove especially useful as we focus on additional key markets where we need to improve GM's performance.
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.
It's not an easy decision. We don't have many plants that aren't high quality and very productive.
Everybody's got a piece of it. What we're trying to do is look at each piece and say, 'Where are we really uncompetitive versus the people we run against?'... If we're out of line, that's what we need to work on. So, it may not be exactly the same sacrifice everywhere, but I think just about everybody's got a piece of it.
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.
There was an almost an 80% decline one year from 640,000 vehicles to 200,000, and now it's grown back. Our share has grown a lot.
This is a very big step forward that we will build on, ... the single biggest cost reduction that we've probably been able to announce in a single day in the history of G.M.