Report on “My Years with General Motors”

Mitchell Clemmons

Report on Alfred Sloan’s “My Years with General Motors”

It is hard to forget the events that unfolded in 2009 regarding the General Motor Corporation. On June 1st 2009, GM filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and on July 10th 2009 the company was purchased by another entity. After reading Alfred P. Sloan’s My Years with General Motors, it is hard to imagine what happened between the years Sloan was president of the company until 1956 and what the company was in 2009. Sloan was one of the to work out system organization in a large corporation. He developed GM into an extremely successful corporation and left it in a healthy economic position.

Sloan begins with describing the years when Mr. William C. Durant establishes the General Motors Company. Mr. Durant began by bringing in Buick, Olds (now Oldsmobile), Oakland (Pontiac), and Cadillac in 1908. Each company was itself a separate business located around General Motors, which was located at the center. He also brought in numerous part manufacturers into the company. Just two years after its creation, Durant begins experiencing financial difficulty and seeks financial relief by taking a $15 million note and was forced to no longer involve himself in matters of management. Mr. Nash took over and became president of the company. In 1916, Mr. Nash resigned and Durant soon gained the title as president of the company. Soon afterwards Durant consolidated General Motors by making Buick and Cadillac divisions of the company and, in 1918, acquired Chevrolet.

During the early life of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan was employed with the Hyatt Company, which was creating antifriction bearing s intended to replace billiard balls. The antifriction bearings gained the interest of car companies who wished to experiment with the bearings in new car models. Sloan began to work with the companies as a sales-engineer to find ways to incorporate the bearings into different areas of the cars (i.e. axel or...