In 1991, I had an opportunity to choose another new company car within a certain price range. My counterparts on the senior staff of our dairy cooperative, even the CEO, would invariably choose a Chevy or Ford. At the time, that was expected in small-town America.
I had engine problems with my previous company car, a Ford, and, even before that, the driver's seat of my Chevy company car began showing wear at 50,000 miles.
So, at the minor shock of my fellow vice presidents 30 years ago, I decided to pull a switcheroo and chose a Toyota Camry – at that time not so much an “American” car.
That 1991 Camry was one of the most enjoyable cars I’ve had over the last 60 years. At the end of that company car’s three-year lease, Pam and I bought it for our personal use, drove it for six more years and then gave it (still in good shape) to our niece.
I still admire how Japanese management style and manufacturing technique revamped the automobile industry in this country and the world during my lifetime. I was there when global marketing started changing America between the coasts.
* When did you make an off-the-wall decision earlier in life that, with hindsight, you now find reasonable and fun to recall?
In 1991, I had an opportunity to choose another new company car within a certain price range. My counterparts on the senior staff of our dairy cooperative, even the CEO, would invariably choose a Chevy or Ford. At the time, that was expected in small-town America.
I had engine problems with my previous company car, a Ford, and, even before that, the driver's seat of my Chevy company car began showing wear at 50,000 miles.
So, at the minor shock of my fellow vice presidents 30 years ago, I decided to pull a switcheroo and chose a Toyota Camry – at that time not so much an “American” car.
That 1991 Camry was one of the most enjoyable cars I’ve had over the last 60 years. At the end of that company car’s three-year lease, Pam and I bought it for our personal use, drove it for six more years and then gave it (still in good shape) to our niece.
I still admire how Japanese management style and manufacturing technique revamped the automobile industry in this country and the world during my lifetime. I was there when global marketing started changing America between the coasts.
* When did you make an off-the-wall decision earlier in life that, with hindsight, you now find reasonable and fun to recall?