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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

MARY BARRY: GM WILL LEARN FROM COBALT MISTAKES

The following Opinion piece appears in today's USA Today.

Cars put food on our table and put me through college.  This industry gave me a career and has provided countless families with tremendous opportunities. 

I love making cars, and I'm proud of the cars we make at GM today.  So, when something goes wrong with any of our vehicles, I take it personally.  If that happens, our duty is to accept responsibility, fix the problem and make the changes needed to ensure it does not happen again.

Everyone at GM regrets that it took so long to confirm the problem associated with the Cobalt and similar models and issue a recall.  We are deeply sorry for the lives lost and the lives it has affected.

This issue goes back ten years and involved vehicles we no longer make, but I take responsibility for resolving it on behalf of our customers, our employees and the authorities.

This is an extraordinary situation, and so we are taking extraordinary steps.

We are working overtime with our supplier, doubling their capacity to make replacement ifnition switches that are to begin arriving by April 7.  Our goal is to repair every car.

We are reaching out to customers by mail, through social media, by phone and through the news media.  And we have beefed up our customer service centers to handle the influx of calls.

In addition to repairing their vehicles, we have empowered our dealers to fully support our customers, whether they need alternative transportation or additional help in purchasing another car.

Lots of people want to know what happened.  That's why I ordered a top-to-bottom review of how this happened and why, and I have entrusted that review to a highly respected lawyer and former U.S. Attorney.  He will bring us the facts and we will take any appropriate action as the facts demand.

We will determine what went wrong, and, more importantly, what we can do to ensure that our customers do not go through this again.  But we aren't waiting for the final results to act.

This week, I established a new global vehicle safety position to be led by a vice president -- a first for GM.  In this role, Jeff Boyer will set a new standard for customer and vehicle safety and his first order of business is to help prevent this from happening again.

He will look across the organization, identify and analyze the data, connect them and give the company the most accurate, real-time safety performance picture of any of our vehicles around the globe.

In his 40-year career, Jeff has distinguished himself as a safety zealot.  Jeff will open access to me and our board.  If there are obstacles in his way, he has authority to remove them.  If he needs more resources, he will get them.

As I've reminded our employees, GM will be judged by how we respond to this problem.  In addition to the steps outlined above, we are cooperating fully with the government as they investigate this situation.

I appreciate the effort that our people are putting into making this recall work as smoothly and efficiently as we can, thanks to the three values that guide us -- the customer is our compass, relationships matter and individual excellence is crucial.

Today's General Motors is truly committed to ensuring the safety, satisfaction and peace of mind of our customers.


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