GM LORDSTOWN Midgley takes the wheel

Herman Maass will retire as plant manager on May 1.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
LORDSTOWN -- General Motors signaled a promising futurebelieve in the future of the Lordstown Assembly Plant by placing one of its rising stars at the helm, instead of an executive near retirement, a union president says.
"I'd rather have Maureen Midgley than a 65-year-old guy at the end of his career. At that point, I would know the future would be bleak," said Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112.
Midgley, 41, takes over as plant manager May 1 when Herman Maass, 60, retires.
Midgley has been assistant plant manager since August 1999 and recently has been in charge of daily operations of the plant. She was not at a press conference Thursday to announce the change because she is at an executive training course in Detroit.
"We have a young, energetic, capable, very intelligent young woman running the plant," Graham said.
He is looking for signals from GM because the future of the plant is up in the air. GM intends to replace the Chevrolet Cavalier in 2004 but hasn't committed to keeping the car in Lordstown.
Comfortable: Maass said he feels comfortable leaving now because Lordstown's future rests with corporate executives in Detroit. He said he expects a decision by June.
Executives have yet to approve funding for a plant renovation but are pleased with plans that call for a new paint shop and reconfiguring other departments, he said. The union said last month that GM approved money for advanced engineering on the $500 million project.
"They are looking at where the electrical wiring goes and the pipes and conveyors. That's going on right now," Maass said.
Final plans can't be approved, however, until GM decides what it wants its next small cars to be, he said.
"They are looking at several designs," he said.
Maass said he had told GM that he intended to retire when he turned 62 in May 2002. Once the union and management reached agreement on a labor contract that would run through 2007, however, he told GM he'd be willing to leave with an early retirement incentive.
"They gave me a golden handshake," he said.
Accomplishments: Maass received national attention for his work at GM's Buick City Assembly Center in Michigan and Saturn plant in Tennessee, but he said his work in Lordstown was most rewarding because the plant had such a poor reputation to overcome.
"The hole was deeper here," he said.
Not only has the plant struggled with a poor image from its days of having a militant union in the 1970s, but it also struggled through GM's worst product launch when the Cavalier was redesigned in 1995, he said.
Maass, who was named plant manager in 1996, said a good indication that the plant has turned around came last week when Guy Briggs, GM's new vice president of manufacturing, visited the plant and told him, "I've heard nothing but good about Lordstown."
Maass said he is leaving the plant with a management team that is better educated and more people-oriented. Union and management are working together, and plant productivity is up, he said. Maass predicted that a closely watched productivity report put out each year by a Michigan consulting firm would show double-digit improvement at Lordstown this year.
Relations: Graham said Maass arrived when their were problems with union-management relations but he has worked to improve them. "We've come a long way," he said.
Graham said, however, that Maass' biggest achievement is pushing for better education and training for workers and students in the area.
Maass, who lives in Poland, said he will finish his terms as president of the Industrial Information Institute, which supports local education, and on the advisory board at Kent State University's Trumbull campus. He said he will continue working with Grow Mahoning Valley and has no immediate plans to leave the area.