(He’s an American legend, a straight-shooting businessman ...)
He’s an American legend, a straight-shooting businessman who brought Chrysler back from the brink and in the process became a media celebrity, newsmaker, and a man many had urged to run for president.
The son of Italian immigrants, Lee Iacocca rose spectacularly through the ranks of Ford Motor Company to become its president, only to be toppled eight years later in a power play that should have shattered him. But Lee Iacocca didn’t get mad, he got even. He led a battle for Chrysler’s survival that made his name a symbol of integrity, know-how, and guts for millions of Americans.
In his classic hard-hitting style, he tells us how he changed the automobile industry in the 1960s by creating the phenomenal Mustang. He goes behind the scenes for a look at Henry Ford’s reign of intimidation and manipulation. He recounts the miraculous rebirth of Chrysler from near bankruptcy to repayment of its $1.2 billion government loan so early that Washington didn’t know how to cash the check.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca is an American automobile executive best known for spearheading the development of Ford Mustang and Pinto cars, while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then later for reviving the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s.
Background
Lido (Lee) Anthony Iacocca was born October 15, 1924 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the son of Italian immigrants Nicola and Antionette. Iacocca grew up in comfortable surroundings learning the nuts and bolts of business from his father. Nicola was an entrepreneur who taught his son about the responsibilities of borrowing money and the need for a hard-driving vision in order to build a thriving business. Nicola Iacocca worked as a cobbler, hot-dog restaurant and theater owner. He also ran one of the first car rental agencies in the country and passed on his love of the automobile to his son. Iaccoca was deferred during World War II because of having had rheumatic fever as a child.
Education
Iacocca graduated from Allentown High School in 1942, and Lehigh University in neighboring Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a degree in industrial engineering.
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 the Ford Motor Company as an engineer.
Career
His success, coupled with appearances in television commercials and his best-selling book, made him one of the nation's best-known and most admired businessmen. Even as a teenager, Iacocca decided that he was going to be an auto company executive and focused his studies in that direction. He secured a coveted engineering trainee job at Ford in 1946, but deferred his start until he completed his masters degree at Princeton. Joining Ford Motor Company as an engineering trainee in 1946, Iacocca soon entered the fast lane of sales. With the force of a muscle car and the maneuverability of a racing vehicle, in 1960, at age 36, he sped into the vice-presidency and general managership of the company's most important unit, Ford Division. In 1964, with others on his staff, he launched the Mustang, which, thanks to brilliant styling and marketing, introduced a new wave of sports cars, set a first-year sales record for any model, gave its name to a generation, and landed its creator's picture on the covers of TIME and Newsweek simultaneously. In 1960 Iacocca was named Ford's vice-president, car and truck group; in 1967, executive vice-president; and in 1970, president. Pocketing an annual salary and bonus of $977, 000, the flamboyant executive also earned a reputation as one of the greatest salesmen in U. S. history. Of Iacocca, it has been said that he was always selling, whether products, ideas-or himself. From Ford to Chrysler Iacocca was discharged from Ford Motor Company in June 1978 by Chairman Henry Ford II for reasons Ford never disclosed, but obviously relating to the chairman's distaste for having Iacocca succeed him. Though bitter at being dismissed from Ford, Iacocca was not out of the car business for long. Five months after his firing, Iacocca was named president of Chrysler (becoming chairman in 1979) and began transforming the number three automaker from corporate history's number one deficits manufacturer into a highly-profitable enterprise. By downsizing expenses to a much lower break-even point, by winning approval of $1. 5 billion in federal loan guarantees, by selling off profitable units such as the tank division, and by introducing timely products. In addition, Chrysler welcomed, for the first time in U. S. corporate history, a union president to a board of directors. In 1984 the company posted profits of $2. 4 billion (higher than in the previous 60 years combined), and in 1985 it bought Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation for $637 million and E. F. Hutton Credit Corporation for $125 million. In the early 1980's Chrysler issued the K-car and what would later become its meal ticket-the minivan. Just as the Mustang re-established the sports car for Ford, the minivan would be loved by the young family in need of room and efficiency and revitalize Chrysler. In 1983, Chrysler paid the government back its loans and Iacocca became a star, a symbol of success and the achievement of the American Dream. Along with spearheading Chrysler's resurgence, Iacocca assumed various civic responsibilities, most notably the chairmanship of the President's Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Commission, set up to raise funds for and to oversee restoration of the two monuments. If Iacocca attained prominence through business stewardship, television commercials, and identification with the Statue of Liberty, he gained much additional exposure through his 1984 autobiography.
Talk of Iacocca-for-Pesident became increasingly widespread, and a 1985 poll of 1988 presidential preferences showed that the cocky industrialist trailed Vice-President George Bush by only three percentage points (41 to 38 points). The late 19806 and early nineties were not as kind to Iacocca. His public image, like Chrysler's earnings, began to fall off. At a time when the American people, in the grip of a recession, renounced the huge paychecks of executives whose companies were ailing, Iacocca who had once achieved a publicity coup when, for a time, he only accepted one dollar a year from Chrysler, was paid a 1987 salary of $18 million. In addition, Iacocca, lambasted Japanese trading practices, blaming them for the ills that American car manufacturers had suffered. Critics cited that the American public believed that Japanese cars were superior and instead of criticizing the Japanese, Iacocca's car company should have been emulating them. At the end of 1992, Iacocca was forced to retire after he had bettered the position of the company for a merger or takeover. He remained a consultant to Chrysler (with a $500, 000 a year salary and use of the company jet) until the end of 1994. In 1995, Iacocca announced that he was suing Chrysler, claiming that it unlawfully blocked him from exercising $42 million in share options that he had earned while he was the chairman. Chrysler claimed that Iacocca's role as an adviser to Kirk Kerkorian, the investor who wanted to purchase the company, violated the share option plan agreement. Although Kerkorian's bid failed to materialize because he was unable to raise the financing, Chrysler agreed to pay Iaccoca $21 million to settle the lawsuit. Iacocca continued to work as Kerkorian's consultant.
He resides in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California.
Achievements
Typically, the Saturday Evening Post described him as "the sex symbol of America"; the Reader's Digest as "the living embodiment of the American dream"; and TIME as "a corporate capitalist with populist appeal, an 'eminence terrible' admired by working class and ruling class alike. "
In 1985, Iacocca received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
Iacocca: An Autobiography, the best-selling nonfiction hard cover book in history, had two million copies in print by July 1985. Most readers seemed to accept the volume as near-gospel, while others ventured that Iacocca's achievements had lost nothing in the telling and that the author was overly vindictive toward Henry Ford II.
By the mid-1986 Iacocca had achieved folk-hero status.
In his 2007 book Where Have All the Leaders Gone, Iacocca described how he considered running for president in 1988 and was in the planning stages of a campaign with the slogan "I Like I", before ultimately being talked out of it by his friend Tip O'Neill.
Pennsylvania Governor Robert P. Casey discussed with Iacocca an appointment to the U. S. Senate in 1991 after the death of Senator H. John Heinz III, but Iacocca declined.
Politically, Iacocca supported the Republican candidate George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. In the 2004 presidential election, however, he endorsed Bush's opponent, Democrat John Kerry. In Michigan's 2006 gubernatorial race, Iacocca appeared in televised political ads endorsing Republican candidate Dick DeVos, who lost. Iacocca endorsed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for President in the 2008 presidential election. In 2012, he endorsed Mitt Romney for President.
On December 3, 2007, Iacocca launched a website to encourage open dialogue about the challenges of contemporary society. He has introduced topics such as health care costs, and the United States' lag in developing alternative energy sources and hybrid vehicles. The site also promotes his book Where Have All the Leaders Gone. It provides an interactive means for users to rate presidential candidates by the qualities Iacocca believes they should possess: curiosity, creativity, communication, character, courage, conviction, charisma, competence and common sense.
Membership
He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and an alumnus of Theta Chi Fraternity.
Personality
Following the death of Iacocca's wife Mary from diabetes, he became an active supporter of research for the disease. He has been one of the main patrons of the 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, to 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 helped donate a generator for the Malawi VitaMeal plant.
Iacocca led the fundraising campaign to enable Lehigh University to adapt and use vacant buildings formerly owned by Bethlehem Steel. Iacocca Hall on the Mountaintop Campus of Lehigh University houses the College of Education, the biology and chemical engineering departments, and The Iacocca Institute, which is focused on global competitiveness.
Connections
Iacocca and Mary McCleary were married in 1956 and had two daughters, Kathi and Lia. Mary died of diabetes in 1983, and in her memory, Iacocca donated his book earnings to diabetes research. In 1986 Iacocca married Peggy Johnson (born 1950), an advertising executive from whom he was divorced in 1996.
He married for the third time in 1991 to Darrien Earle. They were divorced three years later.
