November 25, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, auto CEO Roger Penske ripped the seats out of his private jet to give Mercedes Benz a personal apology because of a business failure.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is our American Stories and now it's time for
our series Do the Right Thing, which revolves around ethical
dilemmas and always sponsored by the great folks at the
Daniels Fund. Robbie brings us the story of a man
who gave up the chance to be the CEO of
a fortune five hundred company because of one man's character.
(00:32):
Here's Robbie.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
At the age of only twenty three, Tim Luliet got
the opportunity to work at Ford Motors with industry icons
like Leiahcoca and Henry Ford.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Second.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
There he quickly rose to management level. Later, when he
was offered what most would see as a life changing opportunity,
he turned it down to work with one man racing
and auto manufacturing legend, Roger Penske, the current owner of
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, whose company is worth over one
and a half billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So I was going to go become chairman of Federal
Mogul and I needed a I needed references, you know,
it's normal process. So I asked my neighbor, a guy
named Roger Penske, if he would be one of the
references for me, and he said yeah, but only if
you have dinner with me tonight. I said, okay, and
he said, look for a lot of reasons, he says,
(01:25):
I need somebody to come in and help me run
this business. I'll be happy to be a reference. But
if you want to come in and help me operate
some of the myriad of businesses at Penske and had
grown and clean them up, he said, I'd be happy to,
you know, find you a spot here to do that.
So I said back to my wife and I said,
I here could be the chairman CEO of a fortune
(01:46):
five hundred company, or I could be the at the
right end of Roger Penski. This is an easy call.
I can always be CEO and chairman someday of somebody else.
I'm going to learn here and that was some of
the most beneficial days of my career with Roger. When
Rogers said, hey, let's go to dinner and we agree,
(02:06):
he said, he said, are you Are you free tomorrow night?
And I said yeah. Why he said, I'm gonna go
to Europe. He said, let's let's go to Europe and
we'll talk on the play and we'll come back on Friday.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Kim knew he wanted to work with Roger Penske, but
seeing Rogers's character in action solidified his decision.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So the reason he was going to Europe is that
he had a company that was making fuel injectors for
Mercedes truck. Mercedes is people don't know this, but Mercedes instead,
in addition to being a very good luxury car manufacturer,
is the number one manufacturer of Class eight trucks in
(02:53):
the world. They own freight Lighter here in the States,
but Mercedes brand everywhere else. And the Actrous was the
truck back then they had was the number one truck,
and it was all new and all new engines, new emissions.
Diesel engines used to be pretty dirty. They're still not
the cleanest things on earth. But to get these things
cleaner you have to run high pressure fuel. And Roger
(03:19):
had a great relation with Mercedes because we built Formula
one racing engines from Mercedes back then, so those are
just a strong relationship. So even though he didn't have
a long history of making fuel injectors, when they did
this new truck, they gave it to Roger and they
were impossible to make and they had fallen behind. It
was a very difficult product to make, and the Mercedes
(03:43):
Class eight truck in Europe is the truck in Europe.
And so here was the truck line down and the
engine line down. And you're a plant manager and you're
supposed to making an engine. You don't have parts. Even
though the decision was made by the chairman of Mercedes,
you're the plant manager. Year in trouble brick and Roger
knew who this guy was in trouble and knew that
(04:10):
his reputation was based upon delivering what he promised, and
when he didn't, it hurt him personally. And here Roger
Penske was preventing them from building and selling trucks because
he couldn't get fuel injectors from the engines and he
was sole sourced. So he had taken his personal gulf
(04:34):
Stream and taken all the seats out and put crates
of fuel injectors on his own personal plane and was
flying over to Germany to apologize to the clan manager.
Here's a guy running at the time one of the
largest private enterprises in the world. It takes time off
to fly just to meet this guy handing more fuel
injectors at a level so far below the chairman of
(05:03):
the Mercedes. The plant manager didn't know Roger Penskey from
Roger Rabbit. All he knows is he's going to supply
is not delivering. But when Roger gives his word, he
gives his word. And when something happens like that, he said,
this won't happen again. And it never. It never did,
by the way. I got involved up in a new
plant manager and we did some things there to fix
(05:25):
it up. But it was a tough thing to do.
But Roger felt obligated. Roger didn't go and call the
chairman of Mercedes and say, oh, I'm going to try
and work it out. There was this plan manager over
here who wasn't delivering engines. It was getting his butt sheed,
and Roger went to him in apology, and then we
(05:48):
flew back with an empty planet. It was a brand
new Gulf Stream too. I mean, it's just, you know,
it was really nice. But that's Roger, whatever it takes.
And here's an individual who had a lot of about
the things going on in his life and he just
flew over to take care of that. But the point
is is that to Roger, that honor and that responsibility.
(06:11):
We're very personal. One thing about Roger it's interesting. You
have a meeting with Roger and they were on a
conference table and people drink coffee and do this and
do that, and Roger gets up, he cleans the table,
whether it's your coffee cup, his coffee cup. Then done.
You're traveling with him, you that's where the bags are
put down. He picks bags up, especially if a woman's bag.
(06:33):
He won't let him. They're not carrying him. He carries it.
He's uh, he goes, he goes into the bathroom and
he wipes the mirror if there's stains on it in
a you know, in a public bathroom. He he is
focused on helping doing things, uh, to improve things for others.
(06:56):
And you want him as your partner because if he
owns one percent of something, he feels unbound to help
the enterprise as much as to be on one hundred
of it. So we had a we had a partnership
back with Kmart back when I was at the time.
And we're we're going through Kmart to go back to
our section we had Pensciato centers, and as we're walking
(07:18):
through back to the corner where our products are, he's
straightening the aisle of the of the other stuff of
soaps and other things as we're going down the aisle
because it didn't look right, and it didn't the store
was not well managed. And here he is straightening, you know,
aisles and straightening displays of things that were not ours,
(07:39):
but they look bad and he didn't like people seeing that.
Walking back to the to our part of the building.
He is just he is one of those unique individuals.
I would say that that outside of my father, he's
a person that would probably tell me more about life
(07:59):
and responsible as anybody ever met. He's a unique individual.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And a special thanks to Tim Luliet and my goodness,
what a story and more often than not, don't go
after the money, folks, go after the learning every time.
Chase the learning and chase the integrity. And special thanks
to Robbie for the work on this and Alex for
chasing down the story. And a special thanks to the
Daniels Fund and their ethics initiative and are Do the
(08:29):
Right Thing series which is about ethical dilemmas and my goodness.
To learn more about bringing their ethics programs to your school, business,
or police department or any other organization, go to Danielsfund
dot org and if you have stories about ethical dilemmas,
we'd love to hear them. Send them to our Americanstories
dot com. And there are a bunch of words eight
(08:51):
in essence at the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative and their
important words, And in this one what brings to mind
is integrity and trust and my goodness. Integrity act with
honesty in all situations. Trust build trust in all stakeholder relationships,
and my goodness, Roger Penske's actions are the embodiment of
(09:12):
integrity and trust, which is the basis for all relationships business, personal,
and everything in between. Are Do the Right Things series
here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories and now it's time for
our series Do the Right Thing, which revolves around ethical
dilemmas and always sponsored by the great folks at the
Daniels Fund. Robbie brings us the story of a man
who gave up the chance to be the CEO of
a fortune five hundred company because of one man's character.
(00:32):
Here's Robbie.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
At the age of only twenty three, Tim Luliet got
the opportunity to work at Ford Motors with industry icons
like Leiahcoca and Henry Ford.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Second.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
There he quickly rose to management level. Later, when he
was offered what most would see as a life changing opportunity,
he turned it down to work with one man racing
and auto manufacturing legend, Roger Penske, the current owner of
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, whose company is worth over one
and a half billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So I was going to go become chairman of Federal
Mogul and I needed a I needed references, you know,
it's normal process. So I asked my neighbor, a guy
named Roger Penske, if he would be one of the
references for me, and he said yeah, but only if
you have dinner with me tonight. I said, okay, and
he said, look for a lot of reasons, he says,
(01:25):
I need somebody to come in and help me run
this business. I'll be happy to be a reference. But
if you want to come in and help me operate
some of the myriad of businesses at Penske and had
grown and clean them up, he said, I'd be happy to,
you know, find you a spot here to do that.
So I said back to my wife and I said,
I here could be the chairman CEO of a fortune
(01:46):
five hundred company, or I could be the at the
right end of Roger Penski. This is an easy call.
I can always be CEO and chairman someday of somebody else.
I'm going to learn here and that was some of
the most beneficial days of my career with Roger. When
Rogers said, hey, let's go to dinner and we agree,
(02:06):
he said, he said, are you Are you free tomorrow night?
And I said yeah. Why he said, I'm gonna go
to Europe. He said, let's let's go to Europe and
we'll talk on the play and we'll come back on Friday.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Kim knew he wanted to work with Roger Penske, but
seeing Rogers's character in action solidified his decision.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So the reason he was going to Europe is that
he had a company that was making fuel injectors for
Mercedes truck. Mercedes is people don't know this, but Mercedes instead,
in addition to being a very good luxury car manufacturer,
is the number one manufacturer of Class eight trucks in
(02:53):
the world. They own freight Lighter here in the States,
but Mercedes brand everywhere else. And the Actrous was the
truck back then they had was the number one truck,
and it was all new and all new engines, new emissions.
Diesel engines used to be pretty dirty. They're still not
the cleanest things on earth. But to get these things
cleaner you have to run high pressure fuel. And Roger
(03:19):
had a great relation with Mercedes because we built Formula
one racing engines from Mercedes back then, so those are
just a strong relationship. So even though he didn't have
a long history of making fuel injectors, when they did
this new truck, they gave it to Roger and they
were impossible to make and they had fallen behind. It
was a very difficult product to make, and the Mercedes
(03:43):
Class eight truck in Europe is the truck in Europe.
And so here was the truck line down and the
engine line down. And you're a plant manager and you're
supposed to making an engine. You don't have parts. Even
though the decision was made by the chairman of Mercedes,
you're the plant manager. Year in trouble brick and Roger
knew who this guy was in trouble and knew that
(04:10):
his reputation was based upon delivering what he promised, and
when he didn't, it hurt him personally. And here Roger
Penske was preventing them from building and selling trucks because
he couldn't get fuel injectors from the engines and he
was sole sourced. So he had taken his personal gulf
(04:34):
Stream and taken all the seats out and put crates
of fuel injectors on his own personal plane and was
flying over to Germany to apologize to the clan manager.
Here's a guy running at the time one of the
largest private enterprises in the world. It takes time off
to fly just to meet this guy handing more fuel
injectors at a level so far below the chairman of
(05:03):
the Mercedes. The plant manager didn't know Roger Penskey from
Roger Rabbit. All he knows is he's going to supply
is not delivering. But when Roger gives his word, he
gives his word. And when something happens like that, he said,
this won't happen again. And it never. It never did,
by the way. I got involved up in a new
plant manager and we did some things there to fix
(05:25):
it up. But it was a tough thing to do.
But Roger felt obligated. Roger didn't go and call the
chairman of Mercedes and say, oh, I'm going to try
and work it out. There was this plan manager over
here who wasn't delivering engines. It was getting his butt sheed,
and Roger went to him in apology, and then we
(05:48):
flew back with an empty planet. It was a brand
new Gulf Stream too. I mean, it's just, you know,
it was really nice. But that's Roger, whatever it takes.
And here's an individual who had a lot of about
the things going on in his life and he just
flew over to take care of that. But the point
is is that to Roger, that honor and that responsibility.
(06:11):
We're very personal. One thing about Roger it's interesting. You
have a meeting with Roger and they were on a
conference table and people drink coffee and do this and
do that, and Roger gets up, he cleans the table,
whether it's your coffee cup, his coffee cup. Then done.
You're traveling with him, you that's where the bags are
put down. He picks bags up, especially if a woman's bag.
(06:33):
He won't let him. They're not carrying him. He carries it.
He's uh, he goes, he goes into the bathroom and
he wipes the mirror if there's stains on it in
a you know, in a public bathroom. He he is
focused on helping doing things, uh, to improve things for others.
(06:56):
And you want him as your partner because if he
owns one percent of something, he feels unbound to help
the enterprise as much as to be on one hundred
of it. So we had a we had a partnership
back with Kmart back when I was at the time.
And we're we're going through Kmart to go back to
our section we had Pensciato centers, and as we're walking
(07:18):
through back to the corner where our products are, he's
straightening the aisle of the of the other stuff of
soaps and other things as we're going down the aisle
because it didn't look right, and it didn't the store
was not well managed. And here he is straightening, you know,
aisles and straightening displays of things that were not ours,
(07:39):
but they look bad and he didn't like people seeing that.
Walking back to the to our part of the building.
He is just he is one of those unique individuals.
I would say that that outside of my father, he's
a person that would probably tell me more about life
(07:59):
and responsible as anybody ever met. He's a unique individual.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And a special thanks to Tim Luliet and my goodness,
what a story and more often than not, don't go
after the money, folks, go after the learning every time.
Chase the learning and chase the integrity. And special thanks
to Robbie for the work on this and Alex for
chasing down the story. And a special thanks to the
Daniels Fund and their ethics initiative and are Do the
(08:29):
Right Thing series which is about ethical dilemmas and my goodness.
To learn more about bringing their ethics programs to your school, business,
or police department or any other organization, go to Danielsfund
dot org and if you have stories about ethical dilemmas,
we'd love to hear them. Send them to our Americanstories
dot com. And there are a bunch of words eight
(08:51):
in essence at the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative and their
important words, And in this one what brings to mind
is integrity and trust and my goodness. Integrity act with
honesty in all situations. Trust build trust in all stakeholder relationships,
and my goodness, Roger Penske's actions are the embodiment of
(09:12):
integrity and trust, which is the basis for all relationships business, personal,
and everything in between. Are Do the Right Things series
here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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