After a thirty-two year career with Ford Motor Company, including eight years as president, Lido Anthony Lee Iacocca engineered one of the most successful developments in Chrysler Corporation history. This success has made him one of the most famous and admired top executives in the history of the country's auto industry. He became a legend, the embodiment of the American dream, a newsmaker and a man who was urged by many to run for president.
Facts from the biography of Lee Iacocca
Lido Anthony Iacocca was born October 15, 1924 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Italian immigrants Nicola and Antoinette, and became the first generation American in his family. Iacocca speaks of his parents with great warmth and pride. His father came to America when he was only twelve years old and nineteen years later, having saved enough money, he returned to Italy for his family. InDuring this trip, he met a charming girl who became his wife and mother of America's future great manager.
Lee grew up in a comfortable environment, learning the basics of business from his father, who at that time was the owner of a hot dog restaurant and a movie theater chain. Nicola was a shrewd businessman and taught his son the responsibility and the need for strong drive and foresight to build a thriving business. Nicola also ran one of the first car rental agencies in the country, and Lee inherited his love for cars from his father.
After graduating from high school in Allentown, he continued his studies at Lehigh University, where he received a degree in industrial engineering. As a child, Iacocca suffered a severe bout of rheumatic fever and was declared unfit for military service during World War II as a result. After graduating from university in 1945, he received an offer to continue his studies at Princeton University (where he was fortunate enough to attend a lecture by Albert Einstein), and received a master's degree in engineering in 1946.
Even as a teenager, Iacocca decided that he would be the head of a car company, so his research was focused in this direction.
Lee Iacocca and the Ford Company
Lee joined the company in 1946 as a trainee engineer, but it didn't take long for him to realize his true calling in the automotive business and he soon moved into the marketing and sales department, where he showed amazingresults. It was this move that launched Lee Iacocca's brilliant managerial career and ushered in a monumental achievement for Ford. After several successful initiatives, he began to rise through the ranks and eventually found his true calling in product development.
In 1960, at the age of thirty-six, he became vice president and general manager of Ford's most important division. It is necessary to separately note one of his brilliant proposals - car loans, because thanks to him, not only the company received huge prospects, but also every family had the opportunity to buy a car on credit for three years, paying only 20 percent as a down payment.
Iacocca played a key role in the development of the Ford Mustang, which was launched in 1964 and became one of Ford Corporation's most successful projects.
The Mustang, an affordable and stylish sports car, has become iconic for the company and for Lee himself, whom some have called the "father of the Mustang." He set a first-year sales record and featured his creator on the cover of the Times and Newsweek.
In 1967, Iacocca was promoted to executive vice president, and 1970 brings him the biggest victory of becoming president of the company.
An unexpected turn in Lee's career
The 60s were an incredible and successful period for Iacocca in the company, marked, among other things, by the launchFord Mustang and Lincoln Continental Mark III. It would seem that the dream has been achieved. Success continued until the 70s, but by the end of the decade the situation changed. Lee's brash management style and unorthodox business ideas led to a conflict between him and Henry Ford, and Iacocca was fired in 1978, despite the fact that the company earned $ 2 billion in profit for the year.
The story of Lee Iacocca and Ford is over. Lee, who had devoted three decades of hard work to the company, was furious. In his own words, at that time he did not realize that his best years were ahead. Quite briefly moving away from work in the automotive business, he returns to service, but already in the ranks of another company.
A dazzling success story
Five months after his dismissal, he returned to the industry as president of Chrysler, which at the time was close to bankruptcy and approached Lee with an offer to lead the company and fight for her life. Thus began the story of Lee Iacocca and Chrysler. He started the recovery by downsizing and selling unprofitable divisions and bringing in his partners from the old company. In order to save the company, he had to make tough decisions: lay off some workers, sell the European division and close several factories.
In 1979, he applied to the US Congress for a loan as the company was in need of significant financial investment, and received a government guarantee in what many believedan unprecedented step. Under Iacocca's leadership, Chrysler received $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees. At the time, this was the largest amount of government assistance ever received by a private company. This gave Lee the breathing room he needed to update and optimize. In 1981, the company reached the level of profitability.
Now that Chrysler was solvent, it was necessary to seriously rethink the market and think about new products. At that time, there was a need for two types of vehicles. Since the country was in the midst of a serious fuel crisis, an economical compact car was needed. The second need was the development of a concept car. Lee took advantage of design suggestions that Ford rejected while Iacocca was working for them. Together with Hal Sperlich, a former colleague at Ford, he developed the minibus, which was the forerunner of the SUV and became a phenomenal success. Under his leadership, Chrysler launched the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant through the K-Car line in 1981.
The success of these cars, combined with other radical reforms carried out by Iacocca, brought Chrysler out of the dark. In 1983, Chrysler paid off government loans early, and in 1984 the company made a profit of US$2.4 billion, a record for the corporation. Already in 1985, they bought Gulf-Stream Aerospace Corporation for $637 million and E. F. Hutton Credit Corporation for $125 million.million dollars.
Iacocca became a star, a symbol of success and achievement of the American dream
The genius manager engineered one of the most famous turnarounds in the history of the American auto industry and his success in resurrecting Chrysler made him a national hero. Iacocca has been named the 18th greatest American manager of all time. He has been called "the living embodiment of the American Dream". There was even talk of Lee running for president, with Iacocca saying that he could handle the national economy in six months.
President Ronald Reagan, appreciating his talent and merit, invited Lee to coordinate the work of the committee for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Iacocca says that when President Reagan first asked him to start raising funds to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, he didn't hesitate. Today, he is still involved in preserving that gateway to America through which so many parents and grandparents, including his own, passed.
Life after Chrysler
Iacocca was 68 years old when he left the company, but still remained a Chrysler consultant with a hefty salary and use of the company's jet until the end of 1994. Some time later, he even joined forces with the famous billionaire Kirk Kerkorian in an attempted takeover of Chrysler, which was unsuccessful.
Iacocca considered options for his future path, but nothing attracted him enough to join the fight again,so Lee decided to focus on consulting and social work. At that time, Iacocca spent a lot of time working with a charity that was engaged in diabetes research, and in order to understand the reasons for the creation of the foundation, one must touch on the personal life of the great American manager.
Family is an important part of life
In 1948, Lee met the love of his life, Mary McCleery, who worked as an administrator in the Philadelphia office of the Ford Motor Company. After 8 years of dating, on September 29, 1956, Mary and Lee got married. Family has always been of paramount importance to Iacocca.
He and Mary had two daughters, Katherine and Leah. Despite his busy professional life, Lee has always tried to make time for his family. Family happiness was overshadowed by Mary's diagnosis, which she was given at the age of 23 - it was diabetes. For 34 years, she battled her illness, but in 1983, the disease took over, dealing a devastating blow to Lee. The period of the brightest professional ups in his career was overshadowed by the biggest loss. Mary was only 57 years old when she passed away. A year later (in 1984), Lee established a foundation in memory of his late wife.
After losing Mary, Iacocca remarried Peggy Johnson in 1986, but the marriage was annulled a year after the wedding. He had another brief marriage to Darrien Earl from 1991 to 1994. In later years, he enjoyed spending time with his two daughters from his first marriage and grandchildren.
Philanthropy is one of the facets of a bright personality
Love for his wife MaryIacocca carefully stores throughout his life. In 1984, he founded the Foundation for Diabetes Research and contributed several tens of millions of dollars to research projects across the country. Lee approaches diabetes solutions with the same tenacity that he approaches business. It supports great scientists around the world and helps advance interesting research. Lee's daughter, Katherine, became actively involved in the cause, becoming president of the foundation. Under Katherine's leadership, the foundation has funded innovative and forward-thinking research programs and projects that Iacocca sincerely believes will one day lead to a cure. Today, Lee and his daughters Katherine and Leah continue to tirelessly advance the Foundation's mission and sincerely hope that a cure for the disease will be found and become part of the family's legacy.
And this is not Iacocca's only project. In 1997, he founded a training program at Lehigh University, his alma mater, that attracts young business leaders from around the world. It is involved in funding programs that bring food to needy and hungry children around the world. Created by the Iacocca Family Foundation in 2006, the Lee Iacocca Award is a prestigious award for dedication to preserving the American automotive tradition and is a way to honor the world's most dedicated classic car collectors and restorers.
Invaluable experience of America's great manager
Iacocca showed by his personal example thatAchieving a dream is possible and quite realistic for every purposeful person who is ready to work and make efforts on the way to meet his dream. Lee Iacocca's career is a shining example of this.
In his biography "Career Manager" he shares his invaluable experience with the world. In his classic hardcore style, he tells us how he changed the automotive industry in the 1960s with the phenomenal Mustang. He recounts the miraculous rebirth of Chrysler from bankruptcy to repayment of a $1.5 billion government loan. He donated the proceeds from this book to his Foundation. Two of Lee Iacocca's books have become bestsellers and millions of people around the world are building their lives and careers inspired by his ideas and experiences.
The genius manager has also created his own website, where he shares information, ideas and wisdom he has gained over the years in business, as well as discusses issues related to the fund and the serious problems that face the country today.
