New Avis Chief Knows the Competition

New chairman and CEO of the No. 2 car rental firm Avis Inc., Joseph V. Vittoria, knows how his top competitor thinks. After all, he once led rival Hertz Corp.

“I know how Hertz executives will react to certain things,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

So, he plans to maintain Avis’ momentum while “holding back” its growth. Avis, he says, has crept up on Hertz in the past decade.

“I know they are still No. 1,” he says. “There is no dispute about that. But for them to suddenly see their position eroded makes them nervous, and I don’t want to play with a wounded bear.”

Avis was sold Monday to its employees through their employee stock ownership plan for $1.75 billion. Vittoria had been president and chief operating officer of Avis since 1983.

“Avis has always been more of a people-oriented company than Hertz is,” he said. “We think that the advantage of the buyout is the improved productivity and efficiency it will create for Avis.”

Vittoria has spent his entire 25-year business career in the auto rental industry. He joined Hertz in 1961 as a management trainee.

He worked in Rome and in London for 18 years, moving over to Avis in 1965. He rose through the ranks at Avis to become senior vice president. He returned to Hertz in 1977. He became CEO of Hertz and moved back to this country, settling with his wife and four children--”all born in Rome”--in the New York suburb of Greenwich, Conn.

But when RCA Corp. sold Hertz, Vittoria was transferred back to London as president of Hertz Europe. He considered it a demotion and switched back to Avis.

He eventually took 60 top executives with him. Hertz sued Avis and Vittoria for taking the employees and trade secrets. The suit was later dropped.

“They accused me of taking documents,” he recalls. “I did take documents, but they were pertinent to my own existence and a judge allowed me to take them.”

Vittoria was appointed to the President’s Child Safety Partnership, a 24-member commission, in January, 1986, in recognition of his efforts on behalf of missing children.

He recalled Tuesday that Avis had handed out over 1 million pictures of missing children with Avis rental agreements. Three were found.