Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The only humble bean-counter
Former Chrysler CEO John Riccardo died at age 91.
I can't say RIP properly because I'd never heard of him. That's salient because I read ENTIRELY TOO MUCH automotive history. Never encountered his name even once in all those books and magazines and websites. Lots of writing about Townsend (before Riccardo) and Iacocca (after) but nothing about Riccardo.
Briefly from the Detroit Free Press: Born 1924, served WW2, college afterward, then got a management job at Kaiser. Moved to Chrysler in '59, advanced to president in 1970. In the '70s Chrysler was still suffering from terrible decisions made in the early '60s, so Riccardo tried to solve problems by cost-cutting and introducing the epicly awful K-cars. Finally in '78 he realized that the company needed more energy, not more accounting or awfulness, so he brought in Iacocca and retired at 55.
Very few executives know when to fold'em. Riccardo did. He deserves more fame.
¶ 5:15 AM 
