A century of General Motors

Legendary execs: 7 notable presidents who helped shape GM

Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News

General Motors Corp. was once the largest company in the world, and it has been led by men who were often larger than life themselves. Some of the names are legendary, others remembered only by industry insiders. Some are famous for what they did, others for what they said. Though countless GM executives have helped shape the Detroit automaker into the company it is today, some of the company's leaders over the past 100 years stand out as central figures in the company's storied history.

William "Billy" Durant

If there was a name on the side of General Motors Corp.'s headquarters, it would be that of William "Billy" Durant. That's because there wouldn't be a GM without him, said William Pelfrey, author of "Billy, Alfred, and General Motors."

"He had the vision," Pelfrey said. "He was the guy who made it happen."

Durant was an unlikely choice to found what would become the world's largest automobile manufacturer. A high school dropout who went on to lead the most successful of Flint's carriage companies, he had little use for motor cars -- going so far as to forbid his daughter from riding in them -- until civic leaders asked him to step in and save the fledgling Buick Motor Co.

He did not just save Buick; he made it the foundation of the first automobile empire.

Durant's vision could not have been more different than that of rival automotive pioneer Henry Ford. While Ford believed in one brand and one vehicle, Durant dreamed of a family of brands, each producing a different type of automobile for a different type of consumer. It was the logical evolution of the carriage industry, which was already producing an array of models from utilitarian farm wagons to luxurious coaches.

He founded GM in 1908 as a holding company for Buick and went on to acquire a number of other nascent auto manufacturers, including Oldsmobile and Cadillac. But Durant's acquisitions overextended the company's finances. By 1911, he had been forced out of GM and was working to create a new car company with Gaston and Louis Chevrolet. He ultimately bought out the Chevrolet brothers and did so well that he was able to buy enough GM stock to regain control of the company -- and his place at the helm -- in 1916.

But Durant would lose it all again four years later. His third attempt at starting a car company also ended in failure, and Durant ended his days managing a bowling alley in Flint.

"He was a dealmaker, as opposed to the guy who could run a business," Pelfrey said.

Alfred P. Sloan Jr.

Alfred P. Sloan Jr. was Durant's opposite in almost every respect -- an organizational genius who is still hailed as the father of the modern corporation.

The head of a supplier acquired by Durant, he became president of GM in 1923 and led the company in its race to overtake Ford Motor Co. to become America's largest automobile manufacturer.

Sloan's organizational structure -- decentralized operations with centralized control -- became the model for modern corporations. His decision to recognize the United Auto Workers, albeit reluctantly and after a bitter strike, created the labor structure that has defined Detroit -- for better and worse -- for much of the past eight decades.

Sloan saw GM through World War II and refined Durant's vision of a car for every category of consumer.

"He saw that people saw their automobile as a reflection of their aspirations in life," Pelfrey said, noting that this led him to introduce such innovations as the model year change. "It was the opposite of Ford's vision of the car as transportation."

Sloan was also an architect of the so-called "streetcar conspiracy." GM and a cabal of oil companies bought out light rail systems in many U.S. cities and replaced them with bus lines -- a move critics blame for America's lack of effective public transportation.

Charles Wilson

Few people in history have been more often misquoted than Charles Wilson. Most people forget that he led GM's epic war production effort, but they remember what he told Congress during his confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Defense in 1953.

At least they think they do.

Wilson never said: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." What he did say, when asked if his continued ownership of GM stock would create conflict of interest in his new post, was that he did not "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."

Far more important than that statement was the 1949 UAW contract Wilson negotiated with Walter Reuther. In this "Treaty of Detroit," the union gave up the threat of annual strikes in exchange for long-term commitments on wages and benefits that created the industrial middle class.

"Those became the pillars of company-worker relations until today," said Harley Shaiken, an expert on labor relations at the University of California, Berkeley.

Roger Smith

He may have provided an easy foil for young filmmaker Michael Moore, but Roger Smith was a complicated character in GM's drama. Smith became CEO in an era of deep decline that saw factories shuttered and workers turned out into the streets in droves. But he also tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to remodel and reform GM's aging and ossified corporate structure.

Smith also launched Saturn, an innovative attempt to apply Japanese principles to an American brand that ushered in a new era of workplace cooperation.

"Saturn as a brand may have only been moderately successful," Shaiken said. "But the notion of what you could gain through cooperation continues until this day."

Robert Stempel, John "Jack" Smith and beyond

By 1992, GM was facing an even bigger crisis. Robert Stempel tried to lead a gradual reorganization of the company, but the board of directors lost patience with the slow pace of reform and ousted him in an ugly boardroom coup, replacing him with Jack Smith.

Smith moved much more quickly and crafted a plan to unify GM's global operations like never before.

"Rick Wagoner has basically executed that plan" Pelfrey said, adding that these latter-day leaders have had to contend with threats GM's founders could never have imagined. "You can't judge a man outside the context of his times. Who knows what even a Sloan would have done if faced with the challenges these guys faced."