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GM CEO takes bold steps He topples hierarchy, voes to repay loans.
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Who is Ed Whitacre? What is he like and where is he from? Ed Whitacre headed Southwestern Bell or SBC, which he merged with AT&T. Bored as a retiree in San Antonio after leaving AT&T, he took the job at GM. He golfs, wishes and hunts with his chocolate Labrador retriever at a ranch near his house in San Antonio. He is impatient by nature and likes to see things done. Managers who worked with him at Southwestern Bell say while they were working on day to day business, Whitacre would be the one thinking ahead, trying to figure out how to compete in the future, and the things that were likely to happen in the changing environment. For a smaller Bell he saw that it was simply whether his Bell would be acquired or whether he would acquire other Bell companies. He is a hands-on guy who like to do things himself, like running a bulldozer around his ranch, one of the things Whitacre likes to do. His beginnings are in small town Texas. The place is a sleepy railroad town called Ennis, Texas, where for 50 years his father was a locomotive engineer. Whitacre says his father had never finished high school, and he did not want Whitacre working for the railroad. Both his parents insisted that he get acollege degree. Whitacre went to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, because the tution was only $75, and landed a job at Southwestern Bell in 1963 as a facility engineer. And he stayed with the company all the way- with 19 moves living in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas- till it became the new AT&T. Frost, a retired San Antonio banker and a member of Southwestern Bell's Board in 1990 when Whitacre became CEO, says Whitacre started from the bottom, and literally, even climbing telephone poles. So it isn't surprising that this guy walks around the GM Renaissance Center, talks to GM employees, tries out a Taco at the Food Court at the Renn center (says its OK but not like Texas tacos), and uses all elevators like everybody else, unlike GM executives who equiped elevators so they could bypass floors. And he isn't hesitant to wear jeans and a sweat shirt while visiting a factory, which he says is all the clean clothing he had at the hotel. Now he has an apartment. Works 14 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, and has his phone ringing just when he hopes to leave town to escape for a weekend.
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Edward Whitacre is brought in by the Obama administration to lead GM's recovery. What sort of a man is he, and what do peers, experts and others think of him? Where is he from? A sleepy railroad town in Texas called Ennis where his father was alocomotive engineerfor 50 years, and who wanted his son to get the education that he himself had missed out on. Whitacre went on to Texas Tech in Lubbock mostly because it was $75 for tution. Through this story by Tim Higgins of the Detroit Free Press one can see the changes that are expected at GM. The kind of culture change where egotistical lead board members like George Fisher who called himself Eastman the Second at Eastman Kodak in 2008, is now the place where the throroughly informal with little ego Whitacre now walks around opnely talking to GM employees.
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The small town roots, candour and direct ways of Ed Whitacre of AT&T and his role in reviving General Motors (GM)
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Ed Whitacre with roots in Lubbock, Texas, brings a fresh approach, candour and directness to GM.
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GM CEO takes bold steps He topples hierarchy, voes to repay loans.
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