Ford's Design VP J Mays Retires, Replaced by Moray Callum. Mfg and Labor Chiefs Also Retire.
Three of Ford’s most senior and veteran executives are retiring, global design chief J Mays, North American manufacturing head Jim Tetreault and Martin Mulloy, who is in charge of labor relations. Mays’ replacement will be Moray Callum, design director for Ford’s North American operations. All three men had important roles in turning Ford around. Mulloy negotiated contracts with the UAW that were critical in reducing costs, while Tetreault had a big hand in reshaping Ford’s manufacturing strategy towards efficient and flexible factories. Mays has supervised the styling the cars and trucks that have helped turned Ford’s fortunes around, implementing Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” directive in a visual sense. He also had an important role the shape of the Jaguar XK and XF, developed while Ford owned that brand.
Mays is originally from Oklahoma and trained at the Art Center School in Pasadena. He worked for the Volkswagen group and BMW before moving to Ford as VP of design in 1997. Callum is the brother of Jaguar design head Ian Callum and like his brother he studied at the Royal College of Art in London. He started his design career at Chrysler and then moved to PSA Peugeot Citroen and later worked as a consultant to Ghia. Callum was hired by Ford in 1995 and headed Mazda styling from 2001-2006 while Ford controlled that Japanese automaker. Since 2006, Callum has managed the design of all cars and trucks designed in Ford’s North and South America studios as well as for Lincoln.
Succeeding Tetreault will be Bruce Hettle, executive director of global vehicle operations manufacturing operations. Mulloy will be replaced by Bill Dirksen, who is Ford’s executive director for U.S. Labor Affairs.
Below are some of the cars that J Mays had a hand in their design.
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This kind of mass retirement seems unlikely to have been initiated by Messrs. May, Tetreault and Mulloy. They are all still in their 50s, substantially younger than Mulally, and their successors aren't much younger, either. With the risk of Mulally's departure for west-coast scenery, I'm surprised Ford is thinning their executive ranks just now. I wonder whether we'll see them surfacing somewhere else soon ...
Mays has been (arguably) the biggest advocate of Retro-futurism, and it will be interesting to see what happens to the trend in the next 3-5 years when it is not the design direction of a major manufacturer (it's very much been a sub-theme at GM...) I like the Gallery, but I think a List of things Mays directly had a big hand in drawing is even more impressive when you consider the variety: E34-5 and 8-series. Mk3 Golf Audi Avus - AKA TT (and he helped define Audi's design language transition in the early 90's to the better known designs of 90's-00's) Volkswagen Concept 1 - New Beetle Thunderbird Ford GT Aston Martin DB9 Jaguar F-Type Ford Focus and Fiesta (2012) (Not to mention having effective final say for anything Ford badge since '99, including many cars in the PAG)