'THE
FI
Gerald Meyers, former CEO
of American Motors,
consults corporations on
managing crises.
CARLA JEAN SCHWARTZ
Section Editor
G
erald Meyers is a
pioneer in the
automotive and cor-
porate world. As the first
Jewish chief executive offi-
cer of a major American auto
company, he was at the helm
of American Motors from
1977 to 1983. Today he
teaches the first crisis
management class in the
country at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh
with a syllabus and textbook
he wrote. He is also the pres-
ident of a crisis management
consulting firm, GCM Asso-
ciates in West Bloom-
field.
Fortune 500 companies
call Gerald Meyers, 60,
for advice in handling
crises. Meyers makes the
analogy of his profession to a
physician on call. He has
responded to over 150
A-8
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1990
emergency calls, but he pre-
fers to practice preventive
medicine.
"When my phone rings
most often from a CEO, it's
too late. He's either in jail or
10 people are dead," Meyers
says. His forays into crisis
management are beginning
to educate corporations,
since he founded his firm in
1986. He now has 8 clients,
all major corporations on the
New York Stock Exchange,
but does not reveal their
names in order to protect
their confidentiality.
The 8 page brochure of
GCM Associates highlights
some of his procedures. In
"hot crisis" Meyers im-
mediately reviews the situa-
tion, goes to the crisis site
and sets up a team of
specialists. To prevent
and/or manage a crisis
Meyers reviews the corn-
pany's position, helps
assemble a crisis team and
keeps in contact with the
client.
A large communications
company was about to be in-
dicted recently for a practice
that was allegedly illegal.
Meyers counseled the com-
pany, and the client was
pleased with the results. He
also recently advised a large
oil company on how to avoid
visibility.
When USA Today wrote
about the Exxon oil spill
disaster, Gerald Meyers was
quoted on the front page
about the severity of the
crisis. He is often quoted in
national newspapers and
magazines. Meyers has ap-
peared on national televi-
sion programs Good Morn-
ing America and MacNeil
Lehrer News Hour
Crisis management was
not a planned second career.
It evolved for Meyers after
years in the automotive
world and handling crises at
American Motors. Although
his transition into crisis
management was seren-
dipitous, it seems like a
natural evolution since
Meyers describes himself as
a risk taker, thriving in
tough situations.
"I put myself on a fast
track,"Meyers says. After
graduating from Carnegie
Mellon University as cap-
tain of the football team and
with a BS degree in engi-
neering, he began his
automotive career at Ford
Motor Co.
His risks got bigger as his
career advanced and was in-
terrupted by the Korean
War. When he served in the
US Air Force as an officer in
the 71st Fighter Interceptor
Squadron, he was decorated
by the French Legion of
Honor.
After the war he earned a
MS degree in business at
Carnegie Mellon and resum-
ed his career at Chrysler
Corporation. At Chrysler he
became the director of
manufacturing for all
overseas plants in 1961,
residing in Geneva,
Switzerland, for three years.
"After being at Chrysler for
eight years, I decided I
wanted to move faster,"
Meyers says.
Moving faster meant going
to a company, where Meyers
felt he could climb the cor-
porate the ladder to the top.
Meyers chose American Mo-
tors. In 1962 he became di-
rector of purchasing for
American Motors Corpora-
tion located on Plymouth Rd.
in Detroit.
Meyers recalls his first day
on the job. While walking
through the revolving
doors,"I looked through the
glass and I saw George
Romney and for a fleeting
moment I thought, I'll have
your job." It took Meyers 14
years on fast forward to
reach the top rung as CEO.
At 48, he was the youngest
CEO of a domestic auto
manufacturer. Meyers
chuckles and adds, "That
may be fast forward to you,
but it was slow for me."
Meyers does not believe
that being Jewish neither
helped him nor hindered
him in achieving his goal.
He believes the board of di-
rectors considered the fact
he was Jewish, but when the
decision was made it was not
Jew vs. non-Jew, but who
could lead the company in
the best direction.
Meyers had a monumental
task in solving the pressing
crisis at American Motors.
"My board congratulated me
and then said, `We need a
miracle."' Meyers figured
out that the best way to fix a
company that had no money,
no global market, no
technology and no time was
to merge with a friendly
partner. After traveling
throughout the world,
Meyers found the French
company Renualt to be the
strongest candidate. He suc-
cessfully engineered the
merger between Renault
and American Motors in
1982.
"At the end of the year, I
knew that there was no room
for two CEOs, so I cashed in
my chips." US. News &
World Report reported that
Meyers was paid $435,00
plus stock options when he
left American Motors.
After successfully engi-
neering his own departure,
Meyers needed a new career.
Richard Cyert, the president
of Carnegie Mellon Univer-
sity offered him a job as dean
of the graduate business
school. Meyers refused the
administrative position, but
decided to teach. The only
problem was Meyers
couldn't figure out what to
teach. Cyert asked him what
he could lecture on and
Meyers replied "business
crises."
"That's it," Cyert said.
"We'll call it crisis
management."
Meyers then developed the
innovative course, crisis
management and leadership
in business, for the graduate
school of industrial ad-
ministration at Carnegie
Mellon and began com-
muting to Pittsburgh every
Wednesday. Meyers says he
began telling "war stories"
— not the stories in the
Korean War, but his per-