Decoma’s Power grabs Industry Leader Award

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association has named Al Power Industry Leader for 2001. Power is the president and CEO of Decoma International. Presenting the award at the CPIA’s annual dinner and gala, CPI chairman Paul Cohen noted that Decoma under Power’s leadership has grown to become the world’s leading supplier of exterior systems to the North American and European automotive industries. Since 1996 Decoma has enjoyed double-digit growth, culminating in record sales last year of approximately Cdn$1 billion.
Power, a graduate of the mechanical engineering program at Technical University in Nova Scotia, began his career at Magna International Inc. in 1987 as a product engineer at Plydex, a division of Decoma. At the time, the start-up company was Magna’s and the automotive industry’s first large-scale commercial attempt to injection mold fascias. The operation was plagued by quality problems and Power worked closely with production staff in the debugging effort. A year and a half later, at the age of 26, Power was promoted to the division’s general manager.
"I had tried turning the position down because I didn’t think I was ready," Power said in an exclusive interview with Canadian Plastics. "Magna had grown so quickly it had to take a chance on an inexperienced 26-year-old." (Read a full profile of Al Power in the June issue of Canadian Plastics.)
Plydex solved its start-up problems and the experience strongly influenced his management philosophy.
"You don’t have to micro-manage. If you can take down the obstacles.people that work for you can get more done than you’re ever going to get done by yourself."