As General Motors‘ Vice President of Global Design, Edward T. Welburn is currently the highest-ranking African American in the auto industry. The 60-year-old graduate of Howard University has spearheaded the design of many of GM’s best-selling vehicles, including the Chevrolet Camaro, Cadillac CTS and Buick LaCrosse.
BLACK ENTERPRISE recently spoke with Welburn following the Los Angeles Auto Show where GM unveiled the CUE (Cadillac User Experience), an onboard information/entertainment system the automaker says brings the functions of tablet computers and smartphones to the driving experience. Here’s what Welburn had to say:
BlackEnterprise.com: Many of the new vehicles shown at the LA Auto Show seem to be bolder in design, less cookie cutter than in the past. Is that a result of designers like yourself having greater influence in General Motors than in past years?
Welburn: Well, I can only speak for General Motors and it’s a couple of things. First off, the recognition by the leaders of our company of how important design really is in the success of the company. And it’s a very complex auto industry with so many brands [so] a brand needs to make a significant statement to be recognized in the industry. The leadership at General Motors recognizes how important design is in really establishing a brand, a distinction with a brand in this industry.
The vehicles now are much more high tech. It’s almost like a convergence between your mobile device and your vehicle now.
Yeah, and it’s changing rapidly. I feel very good about the work of the CUE system that Cadillac has in place and really the work we’re doing with all of our brands. At the moment, I’m driving a LaCrosse and I just feel very good about what’s in the interior of that vehicle. Now with the CUE system with Cadillac it goes to yet another level. But these technologies are so much a part of everyone’s everyday life. And you should not take a technical step backwards when you get into your automobile. What is so great about the CUE system is that it really allows the driver of the car to really dial in as much or as little as he or she wants to have as their driving. And in no way does it make driving more difficult or more challenging. In fact, it should, and it does make driving easier.
Much of GM’s sales are now generated outside of the US. When looking at designing a vehicle, do you look at specific regions to see whether design might appeal to a particular area?
The cultures are different around the world, but our customers are exposed to the same information. We introduced a new vehicle at the San Paulo Brazil Auto Show and I’m getting emails within one minute from people in the United States and Europe with their reaction to what we just revealed. The world sees everything we do and they’re exposed to it all. As a result, many of our vehicles can play well around the world.
Cruze is a good example that is extremely successful wherever it goes, but wherever it goes, we do fine-tune the design to that environment. From a technical perspective it’s more in the right in handling and it may be in the power train that’s a bit different. From a design perspective, the color pallet is different, the materials and the interior may be different. But the basic vehicle is the same worldwide. So there’s an example of a vehicle that does play well globally. It’s a compact vehicle and it goes right at that very, very important compact segment around the world. In some markets, it’s more a luxury vehicle compared to everything else. Its role is a bit different. We do have designs that we’re developing that very much focus on the emerging market that are a bit different than vehicles we do for the more established market. And they’re very, very affordable vehicles. In some ways, very basic, but no matter where the market is, our customers are looking for very fresh designs.
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Speaking of customers, GM has recorded several profitable quarters since emerging from bankruptcy and vehicle demand has been coming back. But do you think the high volumes we’ve seen in the past will ever return? And if so, what do you think needs to happen before you start seeing those numbers again?
I’m a car designer and I cannot tell you exactly what those numbers will be, but those numbers will come but maybe not in the same locations that they were in the past. The world is changing in many ways and as you said earlier, we sell as many if not more cars outside the United States as we do inside. The market in China is growing at a significant rate and continues to grow. There will be growth in other areas around the world, as well, as those markets develop and change in significant ways. And I believe the real intensive push on new product and different product and different vehicle types and more fuel-efficient vehicles will really appeal to an awful lot of people and sales will be very strong.
Do you think African-American representation in your field is where it should be and if not, what can be done to see more Ed Welburns out there?
Would I like to see more African Americans in design? Yeah, I’d like to see more guys who are crazy about cars in this field. The number of African-Americans in General Motors design is lower than the percentage nationally, but the African-Americans that we have at General Motors are in significant leadership positions developing absolutely dynamite cars and I could not be more proud of the work they do. Today, there are select few schools that have a major in car design. And most of our
designers come from those schools where they have a real concentration on that subject. When they’re hired here, they are ready to be put on significant projects, day one. We do still hire people who are graduates from schools of fine arts and that type thing, but it’s a bit more of a challenge.So, when I visit the schools of design, the big significant schools of design have a real area of focus on automobile design or major in automobile design, I don’t see many African Americans. I have talked to the presidents of a couple of the schools and they know that I would like to see more African-Americans in design at General Motors. The feeder system doesn’t have any and we are working together to improve that feeder system. We’re working together on that. That’s the only way it will happen, is that if I work with the universities. And so we now have programs in place to help identify young people in public schools. You can’t start your senior year in high school and it’s very difficult at that point. So we have to go down deeper than that. So it is a long-term commitment. And we don’t make big public announcements about it, press conferences about what we’re doing. We’re just doing it. We’re just quietly doing it. And it’s starting to show some benefit. They’re people in the pipeline now.