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

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.

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.

But the young, car-savvy Gale was appalled at Chrysler's vehicle lineup. "When I got here I was driving a Buick," says the native of Buick's hometown, Flint, Mich. "Chrysler didn't have anything I really wanted to drive." He finally settled on a '67 Barracuda.

Little wonder. Gale's first car was a '53 Chevy BelAir, purchased with help from his folks and with money earned working at a nearby grocery store. "That gave me wheel money," he admits.

But it also kept him out of the band -- something high on his parents' list of priorities. They got him private trombone lessons-everything a future Glenn Miller could want "I hated it," Gale says. "What I really wanted was art" He took an art class instead, and soon graduated to well-used 1955 and '58 Chevies.

When Gale lived in Flint it was an automotive juggernaut. Today, it's a shell of the boom times. Watching the demise of his hometown may have prepared Gale for the difficulties Chrysler experienced during his career.

The company's been on a roller-coaster ride for much of the 33 years Gale has worked there. "There were times when I almost left -- many times," he reveals. "But generally when times were worse -- when we almost hit rock bottom -- those were the times when there was the most opportunity."

He saw those possibilities in the concept vehicle strategy and in creating strong teams -- both in the design staff and upper management.

In his early days as head of design, recruiting was very difficult because of Chrysler's reputation as a struggling company. He worked closely with other designers -- John Herlitz, now design chief; Trevor Creed, now a vice president, and recently retired Neil Walling. They got out of the corporate turf wars and created their own way of doing business. It was simple, really -- share information and respect each other's opinion. "We'd walk around a vehicle, get everyone's opinion and then go back and strategize where we were going," Gale says. "I have the fondest memories of working with them."

Other members of the design staff absorbed that camaraderie and a cohesive design team with a "language" of its own was born. Those who didn't come up through the system don't immediately comprehend the invisible way of communicating that takes words and turns them into ideas and products.

Face-Off Over International

Gale felt that same connection with Tom Stallkamp, Francois Castaing and Ron Boltz when the four of them became platform team leaders in 1991. Gale headed minivans; purchasing chief Stallkamp had large cars; engineering boss Castaing got Jeep/track and Boltz, who ran product strategy and regulatory affairs, led the small car team. All were supported by President Bob Lutz.

Creating four teams was not easy. Iacocca wanted to start with just one -- a minivan team run by Gale. But the four men strongly believed it wouldn't work because of the interdependency of their primary roles in the company. After some discussion Iacocca saw the wisdom and launched four teams.

"We each kept our day jobs because we owed each other something," notes Gale. Not only did the platform job give Gale a higher profile; it put design on the same level as the other disciplines in the corporate structure and created an even stronger interdependence between engineering, design, purchasing and strategy. "As I look back at all the years I've been in this business, it is one of the things that will always remain a benchmark," he says.

His love for design was tested again in 1993 when Chairman Bob Eaton tapped him to head Chrysler's fledgling international operations. Gale was told to choose between the two. He chose design, much to Eaton's chagrin. Pushed to take the international assignment alone, Gale's reply was simple: he would leave Chrysler. He believed the only way to stay wired to the company, given the constant travel demanded by the international job, was to be responsible for a key process.

The obvious question then is, are things the same under DaimlerChrysler? Gale says Co-Chairmen Juergen Schrempp and Bob Eaton believe design is crucial and he points out that he -- a designer -- sits on the DaimlerChrysler board of management. "It is one of those things that is logical but would never have happened had there not been a merger," he says. "I don't particularly relish the role, but it is gratifying."

It's not that Gale's not used to high-level boardroom maneuvering. While not involved initially in the Daimler-Chrysler merger talks in 1998, he and other top executives were brought in early on and often sent to meetings with investment bankers. One gathering in London was particularly clandestine. While Ted Cunningham, then head of international operations, was sent off to talks with Hyundai as a decoy, Gale, purchasing chief Tom Sidlik and CFO Gary Valade headed for England. When they reached the hotel they found there were no rooms set aside. With the meeting with Goldman Sachs fast approaching, this was disconcerting. A shower and a shave seemed like heaven. Finally, they discovered the rooms were held in Goldman's name. A 10-minute shower later and they were at the meeting, analyzing potential synergies between Chrysler and Daimler. "The company rued the day we said we could sign up for so much synergy, but we delivered it," Gale proclaims.

When the meeting concluded the men took the Concorde back to the U.S. for an analysts' meeting the next day, "in as good shape as we could be." There was little choice. Missing the meeting would have been a tip-off.

Even though Gale was dialed into the merger discussions relatively early, he says he was "somewhat concerned' about the plan. "If we had to have a partner, this was one of the best choices," he says. "We had done a lot of work with BMW, but perhaps the (Quandt) family wasn't interested. This opportunity came along and Bob (Eaton) ceased it."

Designing The Future

For now he'll concentrate on new design themes and developing concept vehicles aimed at keeping DaimlerChrysler ahead of the competition. That's a blessing and a curse. As a designer, Gale is thinking three, four or five years out, which can be frustrating. "You are working on something for 2000X. Then you walk out to your car, turn the key and it has a kind of old feeling. That can be depressing," he admits. That's the curse. The blessing, he says, is that when challenged by other disciplines, designers can say something will work with confidence. That's because they're on a team that shares special insight.

That team, and DaimlerChrysler, can thank Mm. Abrams and Gale's father, Woodrow. Years ago, Mm. Abrams stopped yelling at Tom for constantly drawing in the margins of his fourth grade papers. She channeled that errant energy, encouraging him to enter his clown paintings and drawings in contests at the Flint Institute of Arts. Without her, "I could have ended up some other way," he says.

More encouragement came from Gale's father. A long-time GM employee, he may have privately questioned his son's decision to forsake GM for Chrysler, but he was always supportive. "He could have said a thousand times `I told you so,' but he never once said those words," Gale says. "I wish he was around today to see what I've been able to do. He'd be so proud."

So would Mm. Abrams.

Tom Gale set the industry's design standards for the 1990s like Harley Earl, Virgil Exner and Bill Mitchell did in their eras.

Under Gale's leadership, Chrysler changed the way the industry now uses concept vehicles -- as a vehicle development tool, instead of mere fantasy. Here are a few of the pivotal best:

1987: Portofino -- The concept that sparked the revolution. The four-door Portofino was Gale's first embodiment of cab-forward architecture. Launched in Frankfurt, it stunned those who saw Chrysler as the "K-car company," and helped steer Chairman Lee Iacocca into approving Gale's future design ideas.

1991: 300 concept -- Gale poses with the rear-drive 300. The B-pillarless four-door sedan was the first in a string of big, powerful concepts (including Thunderbolt, Atlantic and Phaeton) that hearkened Chrysler's past icons.

1992: Cirrus -- Designed at Chrysler's Pacifica, Calif., studio, the Cirrus concept was a preview of the upcoming JA (Cirrus/Stratus) cars. It showed that cab-forward design could be taken beyond LH levels.

1992: Viper -- Gale piloting his personal RT/10, an early number from the first batch of 200 Vipers. The car's role in keeping Chrysler alive cannot be understated.

1993: LH production cars -- Concorde, Intrepid and Vision spearheaded the "new" Chrysler's platform team strategy, led by Bob Lutz, Tom Gale and

1993: Prowler -- Gale encouraged his designers to create a factory-built hot rod. Prowler was born at a 1991 Pacifica "idea fair." The production version affirmed Chrysler's lean, swift and creative image.

1994: Ram -- Its unique big-rig look made Dodge a major pickup player end sent Ford scrambling to re-style its next F-Series.

2001: PT Cruiser -- The latest segment-busting surprise from Gale and Co. It's also the first vehicle to be launched simultaneously as both a show car and a production version.

A drag racer in high school -- never illegally, of course -- Tom Gale drove a '65 Buick Grand Sport and crewed for a friend with a '65 GTO. "These were really thundering cars from the road. The things we did, we were lucky to be alive," he recalls.

Those days of tooling down Woodward Ave. in Detroit, or racing at tracks in Stanton and Ubly, Mich., keep calling. Not long ago, Gale finished building an ultra-slick Chrysler V-8-powered '33 Ford highboy roadster (shown above). It was a time-consuming project and it's paid off with accolades at prestigious hot rod shows. But rods aren't his only passion. As a '60s baby boomer, Gale also loves muscle cars and sports cars. His personal collection includes a rare 1970 PAR `Cuda, and one of the first Viper roadsters and a coupe. He admits he misses the 1956 356A Porsche he restored and will probably replace it someday.

Other passion-stirrers include: 1966 Buick Riveria, 1963 to '67 Corvette Stingrays, BMW 3-Series, current Jaguar XK8 and S-Type. Exotics like Ferrari and Lamborghini also hold a special place in Gale's heart.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Cahners Publishing Company
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group