From Job to Job
People often ask me. How did you get your job with General Motors? My answer, "I answered an ad in the Denver Post. When I was hired it was like getting married and going it work for the government. After the application came the background check and the contact with my current employer. Then an interview in the field and finally one at the zone office. I was married and that fulfilled one requirement. Then there was the contact with some of my key customers for the company for whom I was working. This was August 16, 1968 and I was a new heir at for the United Motors Service Division. Beginning of an odyssey that would take me from Cheyenne, Wyoming through the inter-mountain west to Detroit, Michigan. During my thirty years of service I changed divisions 5 times and went through 7 name changes in division names and all at the sixth and seventh level. The first name change was United Motors Service to United Delco. I had a customers who did not want to pay United Delco because they owed there loyalty to United Motors Service because GM and United Motors Service kept them in business during World War II and in compliance with the Office of Price Administration. That lasted until 1974 when consolidations and mergers swept across the corporation. The consolidation/merger of United Delco and AC Spark Plug into AC Delco was a difficult one because in the market place United Delco and AC Spark Plug were in essence competitors. While these name changes and consolidations were moving forward, my job in sales and service took me from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Pocatello, Idaho to Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah. My job in Salt Lake was Instructor at the GM Training Center. From there I transferred to Detroit.
Welcome to Motor City! More name changes and consolidations. 1984, AC Delco was consolidated with GM Parts to form GM Warehouse and Distribution division. The name GuM Wad stuck and the executives weren't that happy. The Tech Center was the home of the Product Service Training (PST) division and 1986 I negotiated my first change in corporate in employment to PST. My goal was to work for a car division and that came true in 1988 when I started as a service engineer at Cadillac on Clark Street [Detroit]. Consolidations continued and car divisions were beginning to transfer service operations to corporate. In 1992, things didn't look to good so begged my old boss at AC Delco to take me back and he did. In the mean time GuM WAD took on a new name of Service Parts operations. Names change and AC and Delco finally got married and became ACDelco, the aftermarket arm of SPO and things didn't look too good. In 1995, I went to a fellow co-worker who was now heading up the service technician training group to allow me to transfer to the Service Technology Group formerly Product Service Training. In 1998, I retired after 30 Years because things didn't look too good. Raytheon was on the horizon.
I probably don't hold the record for job hopping, but I think I might come close. Gene Markel retired October 1, 1998 from Service Technology Group, now part of Raytheon Professional Services. And that's the name of that tune.
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