Terrell, Richard L.
Richard L. Terrell joined General Motors as a messenger in 1937 at $65 a month. He soon took a pay cut and then was laid off in 1938. One year later he returned from layoff and went on to have a career at GM that saw rise to the post of vice chairman of the Corporation's Board of Directors in 1974.
A graduate of Detroit's Northwestern High School, Terrell was born on December 29, 1918, in Dayton, Ohio, and was raised on a farm. He once told a reporter, "if there was one thing in life I decided quickly, it was that I didn't want to be a farmer."
Aside from two periods of duty with the nation's armed forces, Terrell's full adult working career was spent at General Motors. He has known no other employer. He joined GM as a messenger for the GM Photographic staff in Detroit, but after a few months he was laid off and joined the Army Air Corps, serving for a time in Panama. Upon his return to GM in 1939, he was transferred to the Electro-Motive Division in La Grange, Illinois. Except for a stint as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, he was with Electro-Motive until November 1965, rising to head the division as general manager and being elected a vice president of GM. At age 40, he was one of the youngest officers in General Motors history.
His next assignments took him to Dayton as general manager of the Frigidaire Division and then to Detroit as group executive in charge of the Nonautomotive and Defense Group in 1968. He became group executive in charge of the Car and Truck and Assembly Divisions Group in 1970 and was elevated to executive vice president in charge of that group in October 1972. He was also elected to the Board of Directors that year. He was in that assignment when elected vice chairman along with Oscar Lundin in 1974.
During his tenure as vice chairman, Terrell had overall responsibility for both the technical staffs and the operating staffs of the Corporation. He was deeply involved in policies and programs relating to the Corporation's products and its people. He was on the forefront of the Corporation's efforts on behalf of minor-ities and women, both within and outside the Corporation, and he has been deeply involved with our programs for the development and fulfillment of all General Motors people.
Terrell also led General Motors’ New Center Neighborhood Revitalization program and the New Directions effort in which the Corporation is working with the Detroit Public Schools to equip young people for jobs and to keep their counselors better informed about industry and the jobs available.
Terrell never attended college except for a three-month course for senior executives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but has been active in support of higher education. He was a life member of the Corporation of MIT, the governing body of the school, and in 1978 was made a life member of the MIT Corporation Board of Directors. He also served on the boards of the University of Dayton, Wilberforce University and Roanoke College, and has been chairman of the Board of Regents of General Motors Institute (GMI).
Richard Terrell died in Naples, Florida on December 4, 2000 after a brief illness. He was 81 years old.
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