General Motors Co. named engineering veteran Jeff Boyer to the
newly created position of vice president of global vehicle safety
and charged him with handling all safety-related issues including
recalls effective immediately.
The move comes a day after Chief Executive Mary Barra vowed in a
video to employees to institute new steps in how it handles reports
of vehicle safety issues in the wake of its recall of 1.6 million
vehicles for faulty ignition switches. The switches have been
linked to 12 deaths and the delay in the recall is the subject of
four different federal investigations.
While Mr. Boyer, 58, will report to John Calabrese, the vice
president of global vehicle engineering, he will also provide
"regular and frequent" updates on vehicle safety to Ms. Barra. The
company didn't disclose the timeline of those updates.
"This new role elevates and integrates our safety process under
a single leader so we can set a new standard for customer safety
with more rigorous accountability," Ms. Barra said in a written
statement. "If there are any obstacles in his way, Jeff has the
authority to clear them. If he needs any additional resources, he
will get them."
GM is taking a page from Toyota Motor Corp.'s playbook. Toyota
in 2009 and 2010 recalled more than 5 million vehicles in the U.S.
to make alterations to prevent floor mats from slipping and
trapping the accelerator pedal and in a separate recall, to fix
accelerator pedals that could stick. In response to the crisis,
Toyota set up customer call-in hotlines, a quality swat team that
responded to all reported incidents of unintended acceleration.
Toyota also created a new quality chief for North America, as well
as an outside panel to research ways to prevent problems in the
future.
Mr. Boyer is a GM lifer starting his career with the company in
1974 as a co-op student. He has held the role of executive director
of engineering operations and systems development since 2011. Mr.
Boyer was most recently involved in GM's 2010 recall of 1.4 million
vehicles in the U.S. to fix a problem after it was found that fires
could be caused by a heated windshield washer fluid system.
Write to Jeff Bennett at jeff.bennett@wsj.com
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