Next Chrysler CEO Likely to Usher in New Era : Auto industry: Robert J. Eaton is a low-key engineer with a knack for boosting profits.
Robert J. Eaton was meant to be the star at the news conference Chrysler Corp. held here Monday to announce his appointment to succeed Lee A. Iacocca as chief executive.
But sandwiched between Iacocca and company President Robert Lutz--two of the auto industry’s most charismatic leaders--the unimposing former General Motors Corp. executive looked out of place at his own parade.
Nor is competing with his flamboyant predecessor and his debonair deputy high on Eaton’s list: “Lee’s Lee and I’m me,” Eaton said unapologetically. “I won’t have the national prominence of Lee Iacocca.”
Lack of stage presence hasn’t hurt the 52-year-old executive’s career so far. Chrysler’s new leader comes to the company from the helm of GM’s European operations.
During his four-year tenure there, he presided over a turnaround that culminated in record sales and profit of nearly $2 billion in 1991, a particularly notable performance in a year when the parent company posted a loss of $4.5 billion.
Credited with recognizing the fertility of Eastern Europe’s untapped markets, Eaton carried off the launch of sales and manufacturing operations in Hungary, eastern Germany and Poland from his base in Zurich, Switzerland.
GM Europe takes in $25 billion in annual revenue and employs about 90,000 people, making it roughly the size of Chrysler. Despite Eaton’s success at running GM Europe, some Chrysler insiders worry that he may taint the firm with a GM management style--one that has been widely criticized as too safe and often stultifying.
“If Bob Eaton really wants to come here as a down-and-dirty, hands-on kind of manager, he’s got a hell of a potential,” said Joseph Goulart, the manager of Chrysler’s alternative engines task force. “If his approach is ‘I need 43 GM vice presidents to follow me over here,’ he’s doomed, because this place doesn’t need them.”
But industry observers said that even during his years at GM, Eaton demonstrated an independence often hard to find within GM’s dense layers of bureaucracy. As product planning manager for Chevrolet in 1969, Eaton lobbied for reducing the size and weight of GM cars long before such ideas were popular--or taken seriously by top GM management.
And former GM Vice Chairman Howard Kehrl, who was Eaton’s boss during the early 1980s, recalled that as the head of GM’s advanced engineering and manufacturing operations, Eaton again risked the disapproval of his superiors by championing the Saturn project. Saturn is now viewed by many as a success--and a radical departure--for the world’s largest auto maker.
A native of Buena Vista, Colo., Eaton joined GM in 1963 as a college graduate-in-training with Chevrolet’s engineering center. He worked his way through the engineering ranks to head GM’s future product development and engineering staffs. Eaton holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Kansas.
