Former GM Chairman Tom Murphy Dies

[ChevroletRevived]

Thomas A. Murphy, 1915 -- 2006

Chairman of GM cared about Detroit

Murphy had 42-year career in auto industry; former UAW leader calls him compassionate.

Eric Lacy and Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News

Retired General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Thomas A. Murphy, who opposed the federal bailout of Chrysler Corp. and was instrumental in building the Poletown plant in Detroit and Hamtramck, died Wednesday in Boynton Beach, Fla.

He was 90.

Murphy started at GM as a clerk in 1938 and rose through the ranks in accounting and financial analysis positions before his 1974 appointment as leader of the world's largest automaker, a position he held for more than seven years.

Although Murphy took strong stances on labor issues and major economic challenges in the 1970s, he was considered by former United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser as a low-key and compassionate leader who cared about Detroit.

"Tom Murphy was a corporate leader that wasn't like a lot of corporate leaders that felt their job was to only maximize profits," Fraser said Wednesday from his Northville home.

"He took an interest in the community and cared about the community."

Under Murphy's guidance, GM redeveloped the New Center area, a multimillion-dollar effort to rehabilitate the declining six-block area north of the company's former headquarters.

More at link: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...601190437/1148