Eckler's

John F. "Jack" Smith becomes president of GM (4/6/1992)

7T1vette

The only good thing about that change was that Roger Smith was then retired.

CA-Legal-Vette

Pretty much a bean counter that is best known for killing the Oldsmobile brand and purchasing Hummer. He did, however, improve GMs quality focus which seems to have taken decades to take hold, or at least decades for customers to notice.

7T1vette

Except for some small pockets of quality 'insight' in some of the GM divisions, GM's approach to quality was to throw money at bad quality. That's why their products cost more to produce. PowerTrain did make some useful headway to good quality in the late 90's and thereafter, but it was too late to save GM from bankruptcy. Then, the US government just bailed-out GM...in spite of their lousy management of the firm...and they went on their merry way, again.

[I wonder how much of that bail-out money found its way into the pockets of the GM corporate execs? I'm sure the GM beancounters just labeled that bail-out money as "profit".]