Ed Whitacre, chairman of General Motors, came to Texas Tech Wednesday to speak to Chancellor Kent Hance’s senior seminar class about leadership.
The class was conducted with Hance sitting across from Whitacre on the stage of the lecture hall, asking him questions about his successes in life and how he made his way to becoming a top leader in two major corporations — AT&T and General Motors.
“I asked Whitacre to come speak because I couldn’t think of anyone in the nation who has done more for business,” Hance said. “I thought it would be a great educational opportunity to hear his story on how he made it to the top.”
In the seminar, Whitacre began by talking about his early years growing up in the East Texas town of Ennis. He came to Tech because several of his friends were going and he jokingly said it was as far away from Ennis he could get without leaving Texas. He graduated from Tech in 1964, majoring in industrial engineering. During his time at Tech, he worked odd jobs such as driving an ambulance and working at a local dry cleaning business.
In July 2009, Whitacre said he was retired from his job as CEO of AT&T, playing golf and relaxing at his ranch when he received a call from the government asking him to become the new chairman of the recently bankrupt General Motors. It took four calls to take Whitacre out of retirement and back into the spotlight.
He said he took the job because the largest manufacturing company in the United States, which has aided the country during wars and provided much needed employment for many, needed his help. He went to Detroit and began working on helping GM overcome negative perceptions and convince buyers the vehicles are built well. Whitacre is working for the company for no annual salary.
Frank Kresse, a mechanical engineering major from Wilmington, N.C., said he was interested to see that Whitacre was a lot more down to earth than he thought he would be.
“When I learned that he took the CEO job for GM for free I thought that was astonishing and commendable,” he said. “He’s a good orator, and I’m glad that I came.”
Kresse said he could tell Whitacre and Hance were very good friends by the way they interacted. The pair go back as far back as to when they were in the same fraternity at Tech.
“We’ve been in contact for forever,” Hance said. “What he has done is excellent, and I’m really proud of him. He is a great example of the most important thing being persistence and if things go poorly don’t let it get you down.”
During his senior year at Tech, Whitacre worked with Southwestern Bell at the bottom of the company as a lineman who put in pole lines around town. From there, he made his ascent through the levels of management.
Whitacre stressed seizing opportunity during the seminar, explaining he received a phone call from Southwestern Bell saying they wanted him to come to Arkansas to be a division plant manager, after which Whitacre quickly took the job.
Whitacre moved a total of 19 times during his 44-year career with the company, always willing to be wherever the job took him. He would become CFO and then president of Southwestern Bell before he became CEO of Southwestern Bell in 1990 and, after a series of mergers, AT&T in 2005.
Whitacre said the main ingredient to his success is the ability to hang in there, be persistent and try new things.
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