The Driving Force of Lee Iacocca Lido Anthony Iacocca, popularly called as Lee Iacocca grew up in Pennsylvania.

Named after a district in Venice, he graduated with a degree on industrial engineering and took a job at the Ford Motor Company, moving up to high ranks in product development. While working on sales and product development, he was eventually promoted to the vice presidency, and finally, as president in 1970. During this time, he developed many profitable projects such as the Ford Mustang and Escort, and a revival of the Mercury line. He however, had difficulties dealing with Henry Ford II and was unfortunately fired, even though the company profited remarkably that year. Of Cars and Iacocca He also pioneered the Ford Pinto design although this brought controversy to the company, since it usually caused deadly fires when the car experiences a rear end collision. He eventually transferred to another car company, Chrysler Corporation which was about to go bankrupt due to poor sales. He began restructuring the company, selling off unprofitable divisions, and laying off workers to in his former associates in order to improve Chrysler. There, he introduced a scrapped project from Ford, the Mini-Max project, which he restyled and sold millions, as well as the subcompact Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. As the company was nearing bankruptcy, he asked the government for loans in order to revive the company. In 1987, he led the acquisition of American Motors Company in 1987 which helped increase Chrysler s profits through the Jeep lines. He eventually retired from the presidency and CEO position in 1992, the same year the Jeep Grand Cherokee was released. To promote the company s vehicles, he used his expertise in marketing through a series of ad campaigns which he himself appeared in. Iacocca also funded a diabetes research for his foundation in 2005. When Chrysler experienced another bout of bankruptcy in 2009, where he lost part of his pension. The court approved the acquisition of Chrysler to Chrysler Group LLC, with its new owners, United Auto workers, Fiat and the US and Canadian government. Of Diabetes and Iacocca Aside from being the driving force behind Chrysler, Iacocca also serves as a member of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island foundation. He also collaborated with William Novak his auto biography, and became a bestseller in 1984 and 1985. He also published Talking Straight with Sonny Kleinfield, a book which praised America s hardwork and innovation. When his wife died of diabetes, Iacocca devoted much of his time to diabetes research, establishing olive oil product lines as well as funding the research of Denise Faustman, a physician devoted in diabetes research at Massachusetts General Hospital. Iacocca also supports the Malawi VitaMeal plant by donating a generator and has been a Nourish the Children advocate. Recently in 2007, Iacocca launched a website that talks about the current issues and challenges we face in the current time, which includes the rising costs of health care, and the slow development and progress of US policies regarding the research of alternative energy sources and the creation of hybrid vehicles to alleviate fuel deficiency. This site also aims to promote his book, Where Have All The Leaders Gone? According to Iacocca s website, presidential candidates should possess curiosity, creativity, communication, character, courage, charisma, competence, conviction and commonsense as well.

Iacocca has been married thrice and fathers two daughters. He helped the Lehigh University fund its efforts to acquire vacant buildings formerly owned by Bethlehem Steel, and thus honoring Iacocca by naming a hall after him.