metro
Jewish
On The Auto
Industry
For more than 100 years, Jews have
made their mark on car culture.
S
ince the earliest days of the auto
industry, Jews have been work-
ing in the research labs of the Big
Three as engineers and designers, in the
operations and administrative offices, and
on the assembly line, as waves of Jewish
immigrants to Detroit landed jobs build-
ing cars in the Motor City Here are stories
of a few who left indelible fingerprints on
the industry from Mike Smith, archivist of
the Detroit Jewish News Foundation and
archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library
of Labor and Union Affairs at Wayne State
University.
GMC Founder
For more than 100 years, GMC has been
one of America's premier makers of trucks.
You likely drove past GMC trucks on your
way to work. What you may not know
is that GMC was founded by a Jewish
Detroiter — Max Grabowsky, who may
be the only Jewish entrepreneur to have
founded a major automotive manufacturer.
He founded the Grabowsky Motor
Vehicle Co. at the turn of the 20th century.
He and his brother, Morris, designed a
one-cylinder commercial
truck, which is believed
to be the first truck on the
streets of Detroit. GMC
(didn't you always wonder
what those initials stood
for?) sold its first truck in
1902, the year it reorga-
nized as the Rapid Motor
Vehicle Co.
Grabowsky was presi-
dent of Rapid Motor
Vehicle Co. — one of
Meyer Prentis
the first truck makers in
America — until 1908. Its
trucks developed a reputa-
tion for durability and power and captured
the interest of General Motors (formed
in 1908), which bought the Rapid Motor
Vehicle Company in 1909, and began sell-
ing trucks under the GMC name in 1911.
Grabowsky went on to found the
Grabowsky Power Wagon Co. where he
was president until 1912, when the firm
went bankrupt. He later become a leader
in coordinating airplane and parts produc-
tion for World Wars I and II.
Finance Wizard
Meyer Leon Prensky was
born in Kovno, Lithuania,
in July 1886. His parents
brought him to the United
States as a child and the
family settled in St. Louis,
Mo. He changed his name to
Prentis in 1923.
In 1911, he moved to
Detroit and joined General
Motors as an accountant
when GM was only three
years old. He was later promoted
to the positions of auditor, comp-
troller and, in 1919, treasurer, a position
he held for 32 years.
Among the positions he held was direc-
tor of General Motors of Canada in 1922,
and director of GM's finance arm, General
Motors Acceptance Corporation, in 1949.
He retired from GM in 1951.
Prior to his retirement, he had become
active in a number of Detroit community
activities. In 1928, he was named chair-
man of the steering committee of the
Ford's Heir Apparent
M
ark Fields, 52, became the
first Jewish person to, in
effect, run the 110-year-
old Ford Motor Co. in December
2012, when he was named COO.
He's also heir apparent to CEO Alan
Mulally after 2014, making him
one of the highest-ranking Jewish
executives in the global automotive
business.
Previously, Fields was Ford's
president of the Americas, leading
the development, manufacturing,
marketing and sales of Ford and
Lincoln vehicles in the U.S., Canada,
Mexico and South America. He
implemented The Way Forward plan
and was responsible for the highly suc-
cessful transformation of Ford's North
American operations and its record
profitability, although not without the
elimination of some vehicle models,
thousands of job cuts and the closings
of several of Ford's oldest assembly
plants.
As COO, Fields heads everything in
Ford's worldwide business operations
— the Americas, Europe, Mideast and
Africa, and the Asian Pacific.
Fields' grandparents were immigrants
from Russia and Romania. But like him,
his parents were born in America. He
Palestine Emergency Fund. A few years
later, in 1930, he was named chairman
of the steering committee of the Allied
Jewish Campaign.
In 1946, he headed a businessman's
advisory committee that was instrumen-
tal in the establishment of Wayne State's
School of Business Administration.
His service to the community was rec-
ognized in 1965 when the new University
Hall on the campus of WSU was renamed
in honor of Meyer and Anna Prentis.
Prentis died in Detroit on July 15, 1970.
Architect Of The Industry
Everyone has heard the name Albert Kahn,
a famous architect from Detroit's Jewish
community. But did you know he was
the most important industrial designer of
automotive factories in American history?
Kahn was a German immigrant, son of
an itinerant rabbi who came to Detroit in
1880. Three years later, he began working
as an office boy for the architectural firm
John Scott & Co. in Detroit.
Jewish Influence on page 12
became a bar mitzvah at a Conservative
congregation in Paramus, N.J., and
excelled in high school, where he
starred in cross country. He's been "run-
ning" throughout his whole career.
An economics graduate of New
Jersey's Rutgers University, he entered
the work force with IBM in market-
ing and sales, stayed for six years, then
earned an MBA from the Harvard
Business School. Fields chose to work at
Ford because the car business enthralled
him. "I felt it was really important to go
to a company that made something," he
said.
His first job was as a marketing man-
ager for the Thunderbird car line. By
corporate standards, Fields rose pretty
Ford's Heir Apparent on page 12
Mark Fields
January 9 • 2014
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