Following a surprisingly unceremonious departure from Ford Motor Co. in February, former top executive Joe Hinrichs just wanted a year off.
He started exercising and shed 17 pounds. He's become an avid gardener and on just about any morning, you're likely to find him speed-walking with his wife, Maria, or enjoying summer at his lake house in Indiana.
The 53-year-old had spent nearly two decades at Ford in a series of demanding jobs, including heading the company's global automotive operations. In fact, during 37 months, from 2009 to 2012, when he ran Ford's Asia arm, he flew the Detroit to Shanghai route 30 times, he said.
"I have 2 million miles on Delta and that wasn’t the only airline I flew," Hinrichs said. "I had gotten to know the flight attendants. So after 31 years of running hard in the auto industry, with all the labor contracts and all the responsibility, it’s nice to have a break.”
The break is coming to a close. Hinrichs has joined the board of WaveSense Inc., a Massachusetts startup that is developing ground-penetrating radar to guide self-driving cars. The startup has nabbed another auto industry superstar, too, General Motors former CFO Chuck Stevens, who joins its advisory board.
Both men are part of a burgeoning trend of talent crossing from the traditional auto industry to startups. For example last month electric truck maker Rivian hired GM's Design Engineer Alex Archer, 27, a 2015 Stanford University graduate. She was a rising star in the company when she led the invention of the power sliding console in some of GM's full-size SUVs.
More: Surprise executive shake-up at Ford: Jim Farley moves up to COO, Joe Hinrichs retires
More: Alexandra Ford English, daughter of Bill Ford Jr., replaces Joe Hinrichs on Rivian board
Hinrichs and Stevens talked to the Free Press about why they joined a startup and where they will go from here.
Find a good fit
An Ohio native, Hinrichs started in the auto industry at General Motors. It was 1989 and he'd just graduated from the University of Dayton, but he was a quick study and mastered manufacturing to rise to a plant manager for GM by age 29.
Hinrichs joined Ford 11 years later. There, he held a series of leadership roles, including overseeing manufacturing. He was instrumental also in building strong UAW relationships that contributed to seamless contract negotiations.
So when Hinrichs walked out of Ford's offices for the final time in February, he was determined to decompress and take time to contemplate his next move, he said.
"I've said many times, I'm leaving my options open," Hinrichs said. But he said he would be "very selective in what I get to do next and make sure it’s something I really want to do and make sure it’s a good fit."
With a master's degree from Harvard Business School, Hinrichs can afford to be selective. Still, when WaveSense CEO and company co-founder Tarik Bolat approached him merely days after he left Ford, Hinrichs said he was instantly intrigued.
"I was attracted to WaveSense because it’s such an early startup," Hinrichs said. "You get to see a company from a different vantage point. When I joined Ford in 2000, Ford was 97 years old. So now I get to take advantage of my experience to provide some wisdom."
WaveSense, which is three years old, already is working with automakers and large suppliers to commercialize its technology, Hinrichs said. He declined to name which auto companies WaveSense is working with, but WaveSense is about four years from production.
The technology was developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and first used on military vehicles to enable precise navigation despite unmarked lanes and poor visibility in a war zone. It maps underground features and matches images from ground penetrating radar to determine a vehicle’s location. The company also is developing a system that will navigate a self-driving car through a parking structure.
Hinrichs said the ground-penetrating radar eradicates the biggest obstacle to self-driving cars using Lidar: snow or rain. Weather conditions will not throw off ground penetrating radar and, at the moment, there is no direct competitor to WaveSense, he said.
In his board position, which the company declined to say is paid or not, he will offer support to the officers running the daily operations. To that end, he emails and texts with Bolat daily, he said.
'Take the ax'
Hinrichs agreed to speak to the Free Press on the condition he does not discuss his departure from Ford, which was abrupt and controversial amid a management shake-up that put Jim Farley in his current role as chief operating officer.
On Feb. 7, Ford CEO Jim Hackett blindsided the auto world when he announced Hinrichs' unexpected exit. Hinrichs was Ford's manufacturing boss and the president of the global automotive operation at the time.
Tell Hinrichs that he was beloved by many at Ford and you'll get an "aw shucks" response. But in the minutes that followed that February announcement, bountiful well wishes from Ford employees for Hinrichs started appearing on an internal company website along with some criticism of Hackett:
- "It's sad to see a truly great and humble guy take the ax."
- "Very sad to see Joe being pushed out."
- "In the last couple years I did not see even one person who supported Hackett."
- "Thanks Joe. Too bad you're the sacrificial lamb on this one. Lots of people think Jim Hackett should be the one to go."
For his part, Hinrichs penned a letter of gratitude to his team. He asked that they pass it around the company to thank others for the years of "love and support."
Then in May, Ford and Rivian announced that Ford's Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr.'s, daughter would replace Hinrichs on Rivian's board. Ford is an investor in Rivian.
Talks to Ford folks
Since retiring from Ford, Hinrichs has kept a low profile, declining most media requests for interviews. He has no desire to work full-time for at least a year, he said.
“We still have our home in Michigan and we’re blessed to have a lake place as well so we’ve spent time there," Hinrichs said. "I do a lot of gardening and landscaping and getting out to do that is nurturing. I get to spend a lot more time with my family ... and I still talk to a lot of people at Ford."
He has been advising a couple of companies that he declined to name.
"I have other things going on that are not publicized," Hinrichs said. "I’ve been helping a couple companies deal with the new realities of (Black Lives Matter)."
Hinrichs' served as chairman of the National Minority Supplier Development Council from 2016 to 2019. The council works to promote business opportunities for certified minority business enterprises and connects them to corporations.
With nearly three decades logged in the traditional car industry, Hinrichs is noncommittal, but amenable to returning to it one day.
“I don’t know what the next chapter is going is be, but I know it’ll be exciting,” Hinrichs said. “And let’s leave it at that.”
Raising deer
About halfway between Alpena and Cheboygan sits a 1,900-acre deer ranch outside the tiny Northern Michigan town of Onaway. That's where you'll find GM's retired financial boss, Chuck Stevens.
"My retirement was planned so that I could focus on different things in my life including staying engaged professionally through various board work and working with my sons on some private endeavors we have going on in Northern Michigan," Stevens said.
Those endeavors include the private deer ranch that he owns. Stevens runs it and lives there with his family. He raises trophy-size deer and provides guided hunts.
"It’s a hobby I thoroughly enjoy," Stevens said. "I work a lot on that."
Stevens, 60, retired from GM in March 2019 after 40 years there in various leadership roles. He became CFO in 2014, the same year Mary Barra was named as GM's CEO, the first woman to run a car company.
Stevens now sits on the board of directors at four public companies: auto parts supplier Tenneco; Eastman Chemical Co.; Masco home improvement products, and electronics company Flex in Silicon Valley.
A new 60-hour work week
So when WaveSense CEO Bolat approached Stevens earlier this year asking him to be on the board, Stevens opted instead to be on the less-time consuming advisory board, he said.
“As an advisor, I am available for the management team or anybody else to reach out to me to talk about issues such as future-extended funding, without the fiduciary responsibilities a board member has,” Stevens said.
Stevens' role is compensated in equity, he said. That means his pay is based on the performance of the company, "so I’m highly motivated for it to be successful," he said.
Stevens said he was sold on WaveSense because of the people there and his belief that its technology will be a commercial hit one day. It's a role he's unwittingly prepared for during the last half-decade at GM.
"The last five years when I was the CFO we went through a massive transformation and we looked where the industry was going with autonomous vehicles, partially autonomous, to fully autonomous to autonomous in a ride-share environment," Stevens said. "So I spent a significant amount of time at GM looking at the future including our acquisition of Cruise."
Cruise is GM's self-driving vehicle arm in San Francisco.
"I was exposed to where the industry could be going in the future," Stevens said. "I felt that was a pretty good grounding to help WaveSense."
Stevens said he knows of Hinrichs, but the two have never met. Maybe now they will, he said. “I imagine at some point in time we’ll engage on some topic."
The conversation with Stevens is wide-reaching, but brief. After all, he has other board business to get to, then he must tend to the deer.
“I joke with people who ask how retirement is going. I say, ‘I traded one 60-hour-a-week job for several jobs that I spend 60 hours a week on," Stevens said.
Phoebe Wall Howard contributed to this report.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.
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