GM Gets Itself A Car Guy

He has come about as far as he could from his first job as a gas-station mechanic in Bloomfield, N.J. But those early skills may prove handy now. A good overhaul by an experienced repairman is just what General Motors needs. Last week GM's board departed from a 34-year company tradition of putting financial men in the driver's seat when it chose Robert Stempel, 56, to take over as chairman after Roger Smith retires in August.

Widely admired among his troops as "a car guy," Stempel, the first career engineer to run the company, earned an M.B.A. in night school and a reputation for decisiveness and innovation while working his way up at GM. As head of the Adam Opel operation in West Germany in the early 1980s, for example, he was credited with igniting the transformation of GM's inefficient European arm into a powerhouse. Overseas car operations contributed $2.6 billion of the company's $4.2 billion in 1989 earnings. Having won his stripes under the hood, Stempel must now take swift action to restore GM's sharply reduced share , of U.S. auto sales. During the nearly ten years that Smith has run GM, the automaker's U.S. market share has slipped from 45% to 35%.

Stempel is expected to continue such Smith policies as investing in state- of-the-art manufacturing technology, improving quality and cracking down on costs. In contrast to the somewhat autocratic Smith, though, the new chief is by nature a team leader, known for listening to the troops. To rebuild customer enthusiasm, GM needs some better ideas. Industry experts who applauded Stempel's appointment hope his thorough grasp of what makes cars go will help him move more of them out of the showrooms.