Page 68 - The Way to the Top

related business that I could create—one that would meet my personal and
professional standards and ambitions. I knew that choosing the

entrepreneurial approach of founding and forming a new company would
involve a great amount of personal and financial risk. It would also require
a tremendous amount of energy, enthusiasm, and focus.

After careful evaluation of all of the pertinent issues and choices, I put
Mr. Iacocca’s guidance to the test by leading a small investment team that

purchased five of eighteen assets that General Motors had for sale. The
company had lost more than $20 billion between 1991 and 1992; it was
hemorrhaging red ink and needed to divest itself of unprofitable, troubled
operations. The driveline and forging assets that we purchased were

among the most challenged in General Motors’s asset portfolio. The
business units had outdated manufacturing processes and products and
dispirited workforces. This would be a Herculean management and
leadership challenge. It would be right up my alley.

I recognized the risk, but I was familiar with the driveline and forging

operations. Earlier in my career I had served as plant manager at GM’s
flagship plant, the Chevrolet Detroit Gear & Axle complex. I was
convinced that I could create a profitable, multibillion dollar,

multinational company, one that would be a value-added driveline systems
supplier for General Motors and the other world automotive original
equipment manufacturers.

It was a situation not dissimilar to what Mr. Iacocca had encountered in
1978 at Chrysler Corporation. The big exception was that I would be an

owner of the assets. I would have to lay it all on the line, assuming
considerable personal financial risk along with my investors.

Less than a decade after the official operating and legal start of
American Axle & Manufacturing, the company has become the ultimate

entrepreneurial and executive success story, in an auto industry that has
seen more than its fair share of failures and misery. By taking Mr.
Iacocca’s advice to heart, I have been able to create a company that fulfills