A glimpse inside the mind of Toyota USA president Jim Press
03-20-06, 08:05 AM
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A glimpse inside the mind of Toyota USA president Jim Press
Opinion by Richard Ducote : Toyota exec puts emphasis on people
By Richard Ducote
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.12.2006
Strangely, it was hard to get Jim Press to talk about cars. The president of Toyota Motor Sales USA was in town Friday to speak at the luncheon honoring him as the University of Arizona 2006 Executive of the Year.
The Eller College of Management National Board of Advisors picks the executive each year. Past honorees include Ted Turner, Peter Coors and Jerry Colangelo.
Press needed no introduction to some of those in attendance Friday at The Westin La Paloma.
Steve Lace, general manager of Royal Automotive Group, has seen Press many times.
"He preaches continuously that if you look at things from the customer perspective and do the right thing, the rest will follow," Lace says of Press. Royal runs the two Lexus of Tucson dealerships handling the Toyota luxury brand.
Another Press maxim, says Lace, is that "competition makes you better."
That truism fits both Toyota and the rest of the auto industry.
Imagine what the tail fins, gas hogs and iron sleds of Old Detroit might look like today absent the fierce competition of the Japanese.
Every car on the road today is better for Toyota's leap across the Pacific.
Press, 59, says he has been in the car business since he was 8 years old building and selling go-carts.
He graduated from Pittsburg State University in Kansas and went to work for Ford Motor Co.
In 1970, Press became one of the first few hundred employees of Toyota in the United States when he followed his boss from Ford to the Japanese newcomer. He made the move simply because his boss said it was a good place to work. The company now employs 37,000 in North America.
He found "a company that was run for the customer," and that resonated with him. "I felt good there."
Toyota was feeling good too, apparently. It has become an industry colossus, second in global production only to General Motors. Toyota is about to put its sixth generation Camry on sale, the latest version of the car that has led U.S. sales for much of the last decade.
But Press, described as one of the most influential auto executives in the country, talks more about people than cars. The company respects its people and its customers, he says.
In meetings with Eller students and in remarks to the luncheon crowd, there was no sales pitch for his company's cars. He says a company that realizes its mission is to make society better is the one that will have a leg up in the future.
Not just Toyota, but the entire auto industry, needs to "strive through innovation and new thinking to come up with better solutions for the problems" that need solving to preserve "individual mobility."
Presently, the entire industry suffers from overcapacity, he says. But Toyota is building plants, like the new $850 million Tundra truck plant in Texas, while others ponder plant closings.
Arguably the biggest innovation in autos today is the hybrid technology advanced by Toyota.
But it's not the market success of the Prius and other Toyota hybrids he emphasizes. It's the fact that the company proceeded with hybrid development in the early '90s when gas prices were relatively low.
"I immediately saw that it was the right thing for our company to do for the future."
But, he adds, "We didn't see how quickly it would also be good business."
The right thing to do turned out right for Toyota and for Press.
source : azstarnet.com
By Richard Ducote
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.12.2006
Strangely, it was hard to get Jim Press to talk about cars. The president of Toyota Motor Sales USA was in town Friday to speak at the luncheon honoring him as the University of Arizona 2006 Executive of the Year.
The Eller College of Management National Board of Advisors picks the executive each year. Past honorees include Ted Turner, Peter Coors and Jerry Colangelo.
Press needed no introduction to some of those in attendance Friday at The Westin La Paloma.
Steve Lace, general manager of Royal Automotive Group, has seen Press many times.
"He preaches continuously that if you look at things from the customer perspective and do the right thing, the rest will follow," Lace says of Press. Royal runs the two Lexus of Tucson dealerships handling the Toyota luxury brand.
Another Press maxim, says Lace, is that "competition makes you better."
That truism fits both Toyota and the rest of the auto industry.
Imagine what the tail fins, gas hogs and iron sleds of Old Detroit might look like today absent the fierce competition of the Japanese.
Every car on the road today is better for Toyota's leap across the Pacific.
Press, 59, says he has been in the car business since he was 8 years old building and selling go-carts.
He graduated from Pittsburg State University in Kansas and went to work for Ford Motor Co.
In 1970, Press became one of the first few hundred employees of Toyota in the United States when he followed his boss from Ford to the Japanese newcomer. He made the move simply because his boss said it was a good place to work. The company now employs 37,000 in North America.
He found "a company that was run for the customer," and that resonated with him. "I felt good there."
Toyota was feeling good too, apparently. It has become an industry colossus, second in global production only to General Motors. Toyota is about to put its sixth generation Camry on sale, the latest version of the car that has led U.S. sales for much of the last decade.
But Press, described as one of the most influential auto executives in the country, talks more about people than cars. The company respects its people and its customers, he says.
In meetings with Eller students and in remarks to the luncheon crowd, there was no sales pitch for his company's cars. He says a company that realizes its mission is to make society better is the one that will have a leg up in the future.
Not just Toyota, but the entire auto industry, needs to "strive through innovation and new thinking to come up with better solutions for the problems" that need solving to preserve "individual mobility."
Presently, the entire industry suffers from overcapacity, he says. But Toyota is building plants, like the new $850 million Tundra truck plant in Texas, while others ponder plant closings.
Arguably the biggest innovation in autos today is the hybrid technology advanced by Toyota.
But it's not the market success of the Prius and other Toyota hybrids he emphasizes. It's the fact that the company proceeded with hybrid development in the early '90s when gas prices were relatively low.
"I immediately saw that it was the right thing for our company to do for the future."
But, he adds, "We didn't see how quickly it would also be good business."
The right thing to do turned out right for Toyota and for Press.
source : azstarnet.com
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