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Automotive Industry

Executive Of The Year - Chrysler designer Tom Gale - Brief Article

Automotive Industries, Feb, 2000 by Marjorie Sorge

It wasn't that the butcher shop was boring, the bus was just more interesting. Eighteen-month-old Tom Gale wiggled free from his mother's hand and wandered out the shop door toward the waiting bus. Mistaken for the son of another motherly looking woman, he boarded without question, sat down and waited for the bus to take him on a new adventure. Only a wave good-bye to his mom from the window saved the day.

"I was always fascinated with vehicles," says Gale, now 56, smiling as he tells the tale. That life-long passion for cars, trucks and the auto industry has directed the design and engineering career of the executive vice president, product development and design, of DaimlerChrysler since he joined the company in 1967.

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For almost half of his 33-year career at Chrysler, Gale's design talent and skillful leadership formed a cornerstone of the automaker's product revival and ultimate survival. Now, two years after the Daimler merger, Iris presence and influence are helping to shape the new company, as it struggles to forge a new culture.

A true auto industry hero, Gale is only the third design chief to be honored as AI's Executive of the Year in the award 37-year history.

Only 42 when he succeeded Don DeLaRossa as head of design at Chrysler in 1985, Gale found the job really tested his resolve. At that point Chrysler design was mediocre at best. The heady days of the 1967 Barracuda, 1968 Charger and the 1950s 300-series had long passed.

"You didn't have any real credibility," he recalls. "There was enough to get the job done, but not enough to have a real feeling of confidence from those around you." Gaining that confidence was difficult, even though he had the support of Chairman Lee Iacocca. While Chrysler was back from the brink of bankruptcy, money was still tight and the new product pipeline was filled with DeLaRossa's conservative K-car-based vehicles that would cascade out until the late 1980s.

Wanting to make sure the Gale-influenced designs were robust, he used the strong relationship he'd forged with then-Chrysler-partner Mitsubishi beginning in the early 1980s. "My passport was stamped once a month," he says, referring to the number of times he headed to Japan to share design ideas.

He worked with Mitsubishi on the design of the Laser, Talon, Stealth and 3000. But getting inside the Japanese automaker's studios was a challenge. To prove his credibility Gale had to have something share. He took Chrysler design models and clays to show his colleagues and discuss their merits. That helped forge strong bonds with the Mitsubishi crew, but he also developed a close and continuing friendship with company Chairman Hirokasu Nakamura.

Out of that relationship came stronger Mitsubishi design and a building of Gale's reputation back at Chrysler. With that seal of approval came a new design strategy -- concept vehicles that tugged at the heartstrings of auto show-goers and made them Chrysler cheerleaders.

"We had to demonstrate what we could do," Gale says. "We did it through the connection with Nakamura and the Japanese. I could get a lot done through their engineering staff that I couldn't get done here, and we could do it quickly."

That plan transformed Gale into a salesman -- a skill that would later prove valuable as he fought to maintain design's strong position in the corporate hierarchy. While he saw the concepts as a means of attracting new talent and malting Chrysler's studios a visionary design house, he had to sell top executives and marketing. Reminding them that Chrysler had been a concept copycat helped.

"We were always reacting to competition or some organization within the company," he says. "Engineering or marketing may have been way out in front of us."

Getting the concepts done was a little like being the procurement officer at a M.A.S.H. unit. Money was tight and the design team had to beg, borrow, steal and build a lot of bridges, he says. The design ream took about a third of its resources and put them toward the concept vehicle gamble.

"I don't think there has been any one single thing that has been more significant than that," Gale says. "All of a sudden, we were out ahead of where all the supposed brain trust was. We were way ahead of engineering, ahead of marketing and ahead of everybody else. Pretty soon, if you keep applying this, you may even get ahead of the competition."

Out of that philosophy came the revolutionary cab-forward design, the groundbreaking Dodge Ram pickup and high-image blockbusters like the Dodge Viper and Plymouth Prowler. Cab-forward stemmed from Chrysler's need to set itself apart.

"Whether it is a Sebring convertible or a Ram track, those are firings I ant really proud of, because they have a character that is distinctly ours," Gale explains. Other vehicles were done for different reasons. The Viper, for example, was to be a symbol of Chrysler as an agent of change.

Chrysler's Roller Coaster

Interestingly, one guiding force for Gale was General Motors' design. Gale felt its ability to influence the vehicle's fundamental architecture was much stronger than Chrysler's. Having worked at GM during the summer to earn money for college, Gale had a soft spot for the automaker and monitored its operations. In fact, after graduation from Michigan State University in 1966 with a bachelor's degree in engineering, he was offered a design job at GM and an engineering position at Chrysler. He chose Chrysler, reckoning that he "could move from engineering to design, but I might not be able to move the other way," he remembers.

Automotive Industry

Executive Of The Year - Chrysler designer Tom Gale - Brief Article

Automotive Industries, Feb, 2000 by Marjorie Sorge

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