Changing of the Guard

It took Edward T. Welburn 42 years to become GM's chief of design. Why so long? He started lobbying for the job when he was 11 years old.

“It's a corny story, but its true,” says Welburn, 53. At an age when most kids are fantasizing about being an astronaut or sports star, he was writing GM saying he wanted to design cars.

He didn't officially start work at GM until about 11 years later, after he graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Howard University in Washington. But his drive and focus eventually paid off last October when he was named only the sixth design chief in GM's history, replacing the retiring Wayne Cherry.

In between is a long list of cars and trucks he designed or had a hand in, from sexy one-offs such as the 1987 Oldsmobile Aerotech, 1995 Oldsmobile Antares and 2002 AUTOnomy fuel cell vehicle; plus a long succession of production vehicles, from the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme in the 1970s to the Chevrolet SSR.

The vice president of design job is heavy with legacies and historical significance and in many ways carries more weight than the CEO post. GM's balance sheets from the 1950s now are long forgotten, but its legendary design chief Harley Earl immortalized himself and GM by defining the decade with his invention of tail fins.

“Even if people hardly knew who Harley Earl was, they associated tail fins with General Motors. Virtually all car companies ended up putting fins on their cars, including Mercedes, but if you were to show a photograph today of something that symbolized that period, it would be (associated with) General Motors,” Welburn says.

However, also lurking in GM's not-so-distant past are fleets of bland, look-alike designs from the '80s and '90s that helped accelerate its slide into mediocrity — plus a few big mistakes such as the Pontiac Aztek.

It indeed is an awesome responsibility working both in the shadow of Earl, and his successors, agrees Welburn, who worked for every chief designer except “Mr. Earl.”

“Yeah, it's frightening, it's exciting, it's somewhat emotional…but it is absolutely fantastic!” Welburn adds with a grin.

Welburn's enthusiasm no doubt is based on the fact that GM is enjoying a design renaissance — freed from a suffocating corporate bureaucracy with the arrival of Bob Lutz in 2001 as vice chairman-product development — and riding the wave of many recent design hits, including the Hummer H2, Cadillac Sixteen concept car, Chevy SSR, the upcoming Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Curve concept.

However, Welburn points out that design isn't making a comeback just at GM. In recent years it has become a much more important component of almost all successful consumer products.

That importance is recognized by a seat on GM's powerful North American Strategy Board. Cherry also held a seat on the board, but design hasn't always had a voice at GM's top levels. Most critics agree the auto maker has suffered because of it.

“I'm not in the studios everyday, at all. And I don't know that I should be in the studios everyday. There's a very talented team within the studios doing that work,” Welburn says. “What is important is that I am there to lead the teams. And just as important and maybe even more important, I am a member of the strategy board for North America and I'm a part of those meetings. We all believe (the strategy board) that design is extremely important, and as those very tough decisions are made, design is represented.”

Most outsiders didn't initially peg Welburn as the front-runner for the job when Cherry, former vice president of design, neared retirement age.

Instead, other names were batted about in the media, including insiders such as Martin Smith, who runs Adam Opel AG design; and Dave Rand, designer in charge of interiors, quality and brand character; as well as some relatively recent recruits, such as Bryan Nesbitt, who penned Chrysler Group's PT Cruiser and now is in charge of design for unibody vehicles; and former Renault SA designer Anne Asensio, in charge of advanced vehicles.

It's rumored that some famous outsiders at competitors also were approached. Whatever the case, GM thought the decision was important enough to ask Cherry to stay on past his normal retirement so it could take its time picking a successor.

Welburn wasn't on many handicappers' short lists in part because he is modest and soft spoken — and a big ego seems almost mandatory for the post at most auto makers.

But insiders say that may be the trait that actually won him the job, because Cherry, too, rarely sought the spotlight and often shared the successes of concept and production vehicles with his staff.

“That really goes back probably early in my career when I was involved in a number of vehicles that got a lot of attention,” Cherry recalls in an earlier interview with Ward's.

“And in those days it always seemed it was the head of the department that was recognized for that work. Perhaps that made an impression on my career.”

Expect a similar approach from Welburn, whose career path mirrors Cherry's, including assignments with GM's European operations, as well as the auto maker's high-volume U.S. divisions. The two worked together for years, and their personalities are alike: reserved, but capable of handling the corporate politicking that goes with being design chief at the world's largest auto maker.

“I think he's absolutely the right person for this job,” Cherry says. “He's a great leader, a great designer. He's a terrific team guy. He's had a lot of success, a lot of experience.”

As expected, when asked about what his legacy might be, Welburn talks about teamwork.

“I believe that one of our real advantages is our global network. This is both engineering and design. We've got incredible design studios around the world,” he says. “There's so much power that these design centers have, as we work together, work in collaboration…it is my vision, our vision that we can bring that collaboration to a new level. I think it is a huge advantage we have.”

Watch for more — and larger-scale projects — such as the Pontiac GTO, built in Australia and sold in the U.S. through a collaborative design effort, Welburn says.

And of course there is one other legacy Welburn definitely will leave behind, but it's a question often left unasked — and unanswered: He's the first African-American ever to be head of design at a major auto maker. How important is that?

“It's interesting because it's something I don't celebrate, because to celebrate it means there are so many years it didn't occur. Right?

“But I know it is very important. It can't be ignored. I know it isn't ignored, and I know there are a lot of people in the African-American community that really, really consider this something very significant, so I don't take it lightly. If it has an effect on young people, then I think that's great.”

In a similar vein, Jim Padilla, Ford Motor Co. executive vice president and president-North America, a Mexican-American, likes to say: “If you can see it, you can be it,” meaning that if young minority kids see people like themselves in important jobs, those role models encourage them to aspire to such positions.

Welburn agrees and says simply being visible in a high-level job can play an important role in the development of young people's dreams and aspirations.

And Welburn no doubt dreamed of designing a lot of really hot cars when he was 11 years old and writing letters to GM. Now that he's head of design at the world's largest auto maker, is one of those dream cars finally going to get built?

That gets the biggest laugh from Welburn. “Are there any secret projects?” he says between chuckles. “Might be, might be,” he says. “Certainly some fun projects.”
— with Brian Corbett and William Diem