Career Reflections from inside a Corporate Giant 1964–1981

About the Book

This book is about my experiences at a, now closed, General Motors metal casting plant in the Buffalo, New York area. It follows my journey from apprenticeship training in a skilled trade, to becoming a journeyman in the trade, to going back to school for my college degree, and finally being promoted to supervisor of a critical department in the plant.

When most people key the ignition switch or push the start button, they really do not have any idea what is involved in the engineering, technology, equipment, and human labor required to produce a motor vehicle. Heavy manufacturing, especially casting facilities, were and are dangerous places to work. I reluctantly have given the reader examples of several instances of human suffering which took place during my eighteen years of employment as well as many stories from within that GM plant.

For the better part of three decades I carried the material for this book with me and did nothing until our Government decided to bailout GM and Chrysler. At that point I dusted off the attaché case and began this journey. You see, GM was not going to go out of business but going into bankruptcy would mean revamping retiree pay and medical benefits for the UAW and that was not going to happen. Six decades of questionable management and union relations at the corporate and plant levels had finally caught up with them.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 1964 I began my career in General Motors as an apprentice metal patternmaker (model maker), became a journey man in this skilled trade, and for five years worked as a supervisor in that department.

In 1974 I graduated from the New York State University College at Buffalo with a degree in Criminal Justice while employed at the Chevrolet Metal Casting Plant in the Buffalo, New York area.

Following my “separation” from General Motors in October of 1981, I was hired by the Ashland Chemical Company Foundry Products Division based in Columbus, Ohio. Along with that my family and I endured our first relocation and left the Buffalo, New York area for good.

In 1986 we relocated for the second time when I resigned from the Ashland Chemical Company and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina where I bought and opened up a franchised printing business. Then in 1990, after three very difficult years building up the business we decided to sell it at which point I went back into manufacturing. In 2002, after returning from a two year experiment on the Gulf coast of Florida I 2002 began a career as a residential real estate broker until retiring from it in October of 2011.

The material for this book was in three spiral notebooks put away in an attaché case for many many years and about the time of the Obama automobile bailouts I made up my mind to write the book so the reader could get a unique perspective about how things were in G.M. back when I was with them. One would hope that the management culture at General Motors would have improved over the past three decades but I wouldn’t hold my breath with the Chevy Volt fiasco being a prime example of mismanagement.