RUNNING AHEAD OF THE REST

If there were a seismograph capable of recording shock waves in the automotive industry over time, it would show the 1980s as a jagged-edged blur of nearly continuous turmoil. Fittingly, perhaps, it was during this turbulent period that CPIA Industry Leader Al Power began his automotive career.

Change–imports, downsizing, new methods for improving quality, innovative and unproven technologies–rocked the once-complacent industry. This change, however, also threw open new windows of opportunity.

Such was the climate in 1987 when Power accepted a position with Magna as a product engineer at the company’s injection-molding start-up, Plydex. Power, a 1984 graduate of the mechanical engineering program at Technical University in Nova Scotia, had arrived after a relatively calm two and one-half year stint at General Motors’ Oshawa Fabrication plant, where his career path had taken an unexpected turn into plastic injection molding. At Plydex, he soon found himself immersed in a multitude of technical problems arising from Magna’s, and the industry’s, first large-scale commercial attempt to injection mold fascias. Though an engineer by training, Power became increasingly involved with production processes and operations in order to accelerate the de-bugging effort. In eight months, he was named the company’s engineering manager. A year and a half later, at the age of 26, he was handed the division’s reins with a promotion to general manager.

Power says being put in charge of a division at such a tender a age was a sobering experience.

“I had tried turning the job down because I didn’t think I was ready,” he says. “Magna had grown so quickly it had to take a chance on an inexperienced 26-year-old.”

Recognizing that, “I didn’t have a clue how to run a company”, Power brought the Plydex management team together and told them their success or failure would depend on how well they worked together as a team. The company solved its start-up problems, and Power’s management philosophy was strongly and permanently shaped by the experience.

“You don’t need to micro-manage. If you can take down the obstacles so that people can get their jobs done, the people that work for you can get more done than you’re ever going to get done by yourself.”

Trial by fire

Much of the public has now forgotten that Magna, a company that last year made over US$800 million in operating income on US$10.5 billion in sales, was once in dire financial straits. Yet, in the late 80s and early 90s, falling revenues, quality glitches and other problems forced Magna to close and/or consolidate a number of divisions in order to regain its business stability.

“One of the big issues in the ’80s for Magna was that the company had grown too quickly in technologies that weren’t entirely up to speed,” says Power. “There was also a view that the good times would go on forever, so there was a lot of excess capacity.”

In 1991, during the darkest days of Magna’s restructuring efforts, Power was appointed general manager of Polycon, a fascia manufacturing operation and joint venture of Ford and Magna that was losing several million dollars a month. Once again, Power was at the helm of an ailing fascia start-up operation. Once again, he appealed to his management staff and employees to work as a team. Yet the problems, he discovered, were deeper and more technical than he had anticipated.

“It was clear that everyone (at Polycon) was operating individually at the time and we needed to pull together. A big part of my job was simply to keep the external pressures of shareholders and customers away from our staff so they could do what needed to be done to fix the plant.”

Things got worse before they got better. Eventually multiple corrective actions began to pay off and in six months the plant achieved a financial milestone — the break-even point. Polycon has been a profitable operation since.

The marathon days

After 12 eventful months at Polycon, Power was promoted to vice president of Decoma International’s plastics operations, moving up to president in 1993 and CEO in 1998. Decoma supplies a host of North American and European automotive OEMs with plastic bumper systems, trim, fenders, body panels and other components. The company has enjoyed impressive, double-digit growth from 1996 onward, culminating in record sales last year of approximately Cdn$1 billion.

Power has played a vital role in promoting the ability of plastic to enhance design aesthetics, reduce weight, improve fuel economy and take out costs in car and truck manufacturing.

Power believes neither the continued growth of plastic, or the health of the Canadian auto industry should be taken for granted. Plastic usage could be slowed by challenges from other materials, such as aluminum, or the inability of the industry to improve automotive plastic recycling. He is also concerned that Canada’s high tax rate is forcing qualified people and potential business out of the country.

” We have a huge issue in this country in the fact good technical people are leaving because of the tax burden. Government has to become more cost-effective for Canada to compete for global business.”

Power is a former board member of the CPIA and, in 1999, received a national award as one of Canada’s Top 40 people under the age of 40. He has run in two marathons, finishing last year’s New York marathon in a respectable time of 3 hours, 39 minutes. While he has always played competitive sports, these days his preferred way of winding down is playing street hockey and spending time with his twin sons Joey and Robbie, aged nine, and his six-year-old, Danny.

“My ultimate personal goal is to be a good parent.”