Robert Stempel

Robert Carl Stempel was chairman and chief executive of General Motors from August 1990 to November 1992, and an engineer by training before he was an executive. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1933, he took a mechanical engineering degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and joined the Oldsmobile division in 1958 as a design engineer. He was key in the development of the front-wheel drive Toronado, the first modern American front-wheel-drive car, for which he designed the front suspension and the engine and transmission mounting. He then led Chevrolet engineering, ran the Pontiac division during the Fiero programme, served as managing director of Opel in Germany, and rose through the Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac group to the board in 1986. He was voted out as chief executive in 1992 after a recession in which General Motors closed plants and lost heavily. He later chaired Energy Conversion Devices until 2007 and died in 2011.