DETROIT -

AR: Where was home for you growing up?

Costabile: Actually, it might be surprising to some, but I grew up right here in Michigan … in Flint, which is only about an hour north of Detroit. I’ve lived in a number of other places in between, but I am a Michigan girl at heart.

AR: Flint is, or at least was, a heavy GM town.

Costabile: When I was growing up it was a very robust city, known to the locals as Buick City. It was very much an automotive city.

AR: Not only for manufacturers but also for many of the suppliers and businesses that supplied the manufacturers.

Costabile: That’s right. Absolutely. In Flint back then, it was very much a GM town and a supplier town. We had AC Sparkplug and other companies supplying components going into producing an automobile. It is a very different place today than what it was when I grew up there.

We (GM) still have a footprint in Flint. Back then it probably was a town too dependent upon one industry, and now it is working to diversify itself. In a way, it is interesting to see it redefine itself.

AR: Were your parents involved in the automobile business?

Costabile: (laughter) Oh no! Everyone asks, but it is really surprising to many to learn that I came from Flint and actually have no one from my family in the automobile business. My dad was an attorney, and both of my parents were originally from Canada. They just happened to locate there after he finished law school. I got into the automobile business all on my own.

AR: You didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps and become an attorney?

Costabile: Actually, I did. My older sister went to law school and became an attorney, and my younger brother also is an attorney. I had planned on going to law school until I was a college senior and took business law. I remember thinking to myself: “Wow, I really don’t like this!” (laughter) “I wonder what is plan B!”

What turned out to be plan B was the fact that while in college I had two summer internships, one at GM with GMAC and another summer I worked with the Service Parts Operations. I really enjoyed working with the sales and marketing group in Service Parts because I was exposed to a lot of different business functions I had never seen before.

While I did not have family in the automotive industry, you cannot grow up in Flint and not know people who did work for GM. One was a neighbor for whom I would babysit and who worked in HR and had helped me get the internships. Actually, when I finished college he contacted me to see if I had an interest in working full time, and that is how I ended up with GM.

AR: Did you mother work outside the home?

Costabile: No, she was a stay-at-home mom, but that did not mean she did not work. She was very involved in the lives of all of my brothers and sisters. What she did was probably the hardest job. After all, I came from a family of four children … eight thousand stray dogs and cats at any one time … and mom was the one providing order. She was also very involved in the community, served on many local boards and charities and was a very prolific volunteer.

AR: What interested you most growing up?

Costabile: I would probably say I played tennis a lot, and I played competitive badminton as well. I can hardly remember when I began playing. And my father is a big hockey player and actually went to college on a hockey scholarship at the University of Michigan and won two NCAA championships.

AR: Did he think of playing in the NHL?

Costabile: He was actually drafted … but he was also drafted by the U.S. Army! And that draft took precedence! (laughter) And my two brothers also played a lot of hockey.

AR: Now badminton is not your run-of-the-mill sport, and you said you played competitively. Can you tell us a little about that?

Costabile: It may not be as well known, but badminton is played in a lot of high schools, and I played in a league that played around the country and in Canada. When you watch them play badminton in the Olympics, you realize how demanding a sport it is. It can really take a lot out of you.

AR: What about academics. Were you a good student?

Costabile: I was a very good student, and it came pretty easy to me, although some things were certainly easier than others. My parents never had to worry about me doing my homework because I just loved to learn. I loved history and political science, but I remember that math wasn’t that easy. I think a lot of that was because I had trouble relating to it in real life. It was more of a task, and I really had to work hard at those types of subjects.

I believe you are often influenced a lot, especially in high school, by your teachers. I had several who had an impact on me, including an English teacher who was fabulous. She taught you how to write by reading. She thought the best way for you to do your best work writing was by reading the classics. I also had a humanities teacher who was just fabulous. He brought history to life, allowing us to relate to what happened all the way from early history to today’s headlines. He really sparked my interest in history.

AR: Were experiences like that your first impression of how other people lived elsewhere?

Costabile: Maybe, but we also traveled quite a bit as a family. We always had a motor home and would travel throughout the US and Canada just to see different places and how people lived outside of your own neighborhood. It was pretty fascinating to meet and interact with people out West or in the South or Canada. Living in Michigan, you are pretty insulated within the automotive industry, and you don’t really get to see what is happening elsewhere in the country.

AR: Where did you most like to go on vacation?

Costabile: Probably my grandma’s place on Lake Huron. We would go there for the entire summer (laughter). All of my cousins from Canada would come down, and we had a great time. It was just fun summers.

AR: When it came to going to college, where did you go?

Costabile: I went to the University of Michigan because that is where I had always wanted to go. Of course, all of our family had gone to college so it never entered our mind not to go.

AR: Now, how shall we put this; did you enjoy college?

Costabile: (laughter) I would say I definitely enjoyed college! When they say it is the best four years of your life, it really is. I had a directive from my parents that I had to study and get good grades … but that gave a lot of opportunity to have a good time! So, I made the most of it. (laughter)

AR: But not to the point of getting into trouble?

Costabile: Oh, no. Nothing like that! But it was a great experience, especially in football season where every Saturday you were in the Big House (Michigan Stadium). And back then we just about always won. It was great. 

Like I said earlier, coming from a law-oriented family, I always thought I would become a lawyer. I was a double-major, political science and history, and when I took that one class I realized that it was not as exciting to me as other things. Dad had such as love of the law that I think I realized that I did not have that same passion. I think maybe having that revelation hit you in college is a lot better than realizing it years later, after having gone into the work field. I knew that I had to look for other things to do.

AR: Did you change your major?

Costabile: Nope. Because I was a political science/history major, I just changed my focus on what I wanted to do but didn’t have to change my major.
AR: Did you have specific career goals now that law was out of the picture?

Costabile: I was thinking about a lot of options, but then the friend of the family that had helped me get the internship with GM called me about applying for a job as a GM district manager. I was just beginning the interview process and had even talked with Procter & Gamble and other companies. I knew I did not want to go into law, but I had realized by that time that the passion dad had toward law I had toward business.

AR: What was your first job with GM like?

Costabile: Actually, it was back in the day when companies hired new employees even without an open position … I was a “college graduate in training,”
GM sent me to Chicago to train, working with the parts district office there, and I learned a great deal about operations. I traveled with district managers, studied in the zone, went to work in a warehouse picking parts and learning about shipping and logistics…all of those things. Probably the most valuable experience was when I worked in the parts department at a dealership for nearly two months and got a great understanding as to how a dealership operates.
I quickly learned that the people who train you the most are those in the dealership. They are always so welcoming and helpful. I think there is an appreciation that they can help you, and that in return helps them. I’ve never forgotten that dealers are our most valuable resource.

AR: How long did you stay in Chicago?

Costabile: After about six months I got my first district position working in service and parts. It was in northern Michigan and the UP (Upper Peninsula), and I think I was working with about 60 dealers back then. It is a large district geographically, so it involved a lot of travel time. I was very young, only about 22 years old, so I still had a great learning curve from the dealers.

It was an interesting time for dealers. They had just come out of the early ’80s, where the recession had driven interest rates to nearly 20 percent, and a lot of dealers had not survived. And those who did had hunkered down and learned some great lessons.

AR: That’s a story you can say about today!

Costabile: (laughter) True. Everything runs in cycles.

Times like then, and now, allow you to put things into perspective … allow you to step back and analyze what the customer really values. We knew then that we had to build better quality vehicles because during that period of time we had our quality issues just like everyone else. On top of that, we suddenly had a lot more competition, and that changed things as well.

I’m a firm believer that competition makes you better. A lot of the input for achieving that goal came directly from dealers … and the dealers got direct feedback from customers.

AR: As a young district manager, what do you recall as being your biggest challenges?

Costabile: Trying to help customers when their vehicles were down and keep them in the family.

AR: Often when a young person takes that first job right out of college, that is what it is — a job. It sounds like you took a different approach and looked at your work at GM more as a career. Is that correct?

Costabile: Definitely, because there were so many career opportunities within the company, you could easily see how you could advance without having to leave GM. Of course, I didn’t always want to be in the same job, but I could see myself with GM throughout my career.

One thing I realized fairly quickly was that I liked working with dealers and that I was pretty strong in that area. I liked, and still do, building that partnership. Right off the bat I recognized my passion in working with dealers to sell more for all of us. I guess you could say that was and is my philosophy: If I could work with dealers and help them to sell more, we would all sell more and we would all benefit.

AR: GM is not known for keeping people in one place too long, so where did you go from Michigan?

Costabile: That’s true, and I think that part of the strategy of moving you around is to test you and broaden your experience.

AR: The automotive industry is certainly male-dominated. Did you find this any type of impediment?

Costabile: I didn’t because I didn’t feel like they treated me any differently than my male counterparts. If anything, I think there was some question as to whether or not I would stay, but GM was very supportive.

I had been in the Michigan assignment for about two years when they sent me to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The challenges facing Pennsylvania dealers were very different than Michigan dealers. They had much more competition from imports and their business climate was different.

I was only in Wilkes-Barre for a short time and then GM moved me to Allentown, Pennsylvania, which was more city than rural. Things were different; expectations from customers and dealers were different as you were close to both New York City and Philadelphia. I quickly realized that when you get into more urban markets it is a totally different mindset than that of a rural dealer.

For the rural dealer, the transaction is very personal. They know their customers; see them in the grocery store and around town. You might have even gone to school with them. For the metro dealer, the business is very volume, transactional based. Their cost of doing business was higher, based upon rent factors, wages, etc. As the GM representative, I had to learn how to deal with all types of dealers.

AR: Is there a trend here: rural, rural/urban mix, urban?

Costabile: Definitely. GM realized that rural dealers had the time to spend with a young district manager, to teach them the ropes so to speak. Then you moved closer and closer to the urban centers that were fast-paced, volume oriented. As you matured as a manager, learning the fundamentals, you were not overwhelmed with the metro business volume.

That is why my next big move was from Allentown to Houston, where I became district manager for that metro market. That was a big change from what I was doing and was the first big move away from family. After all, Pennsylvania is not too far from family and friends in Michigan.

I realized that all of that time spent in the field with small dealers had given me a lot of confidence. I was single then and because of that I would work long hours, learning the business from the ground up. Probably then, more than ever, I comprehended the passion for the work that I saw in my father and his law practice. So, when I got to metro Houston, calling on some of the biggest Chevrolet dealers in the country, I felt very confident.

AR: How did the Houston dealers treat you as compared to the small rural dealers? Was it different?

Costabile: I think so, but it was because they are volume-based and expected more from you. I know that when you are working with dealers, you have to bring something to the table; you have to add to the value proposition. You know that their time is valuable and they are asking themselves all the time, “Why am I spending time with you? How are you going to help me make my business better?”

We (dealers and manufacturer) are all in this together, and the more we can help each other the better we both will be. That was true back then, and it is true today. We have to do more than just hit our sales numbers. We have to grow our business beyond what it is today.

AR: You were still in fixed ops?

Costabile: That’s right, parts and service, and looking for ways to grow that business. That was my task. We would learn some of the best practices from one dealer and share it with another.

AR: Where did you go after you left Houston?

Costabile: This is funny, but it was the first time I transitioned out of district work and of all places to end up, I was back in Flint, my hometown! I went up there to work on a special project for parts, so for the first time, I was not calling on dealers.

It was great to go back home. Not only did I get married but also had the added benefit of being close to my family.

AR: But a different culture?

Costabile: Absolutely. When you are in the field, it is almost like your own small business. You do the work like you think it should be done. There is a lot of autonomy. This was totally different because I was working in the “corporate culture.” You have to learn how things get done, and you quickly realize that there are many more moving parts. I’m not saying you have to learn how to “play the game,” but you do have to understand that if you want to get anything done you have to work closely with others.

There was another benefit of all those years in the field, and that was you built a lot of strong relationships and friendships with dealers. So, when I was working on corporate projects I could call some of these dealers and bounce ideas off them, asking if this was a good idea or not. Because they know you, they would be very honest and straightforward. You need those touchstones out there to keep that taste of reality.

AR: Later in your career you became involved with sales activities. Can you tell us about that?

Costabile: I had taken a position outside of fixed ops in what was called MAMs, which is a market area manager. I had a territory and was responsible for sales, service, parts, F&I — the whole gambit. I had never been on the vehicle sales side before, having worked in parts sales, and it was very different, but I immediately loved it. It was both challenging and exciting.

Expanding into different areas broadened my opportunities. It allowed me to work in Minneapolis, Chicago and Atlanta. I had the opportunity to work at Chevrolet, Pontiac-Buick-GMC and Cadillac. Then I took the post as general sales manager for Buick and GMC here in Detroit. From there, I had several choices for my next assignment, and I chose GM Fleet and Commercial Operations, which includes GM Remarketing.

AR: How do you like this assignment?

Costabile: I like it a lot because of the variety. Not only do I oversee remarketing, but I am also responsible for the GM Certified Used Vehicles program, as well as all of the advertising and marketing for fleet, and I just took over the business sales operations responsibility for GM Business Central dealers.
Initially, I knew very little about the auction business, but I did know Dan Kennedy, manager of GM Remarketing. I used to call him when I was a zone manager, so when I got here he was the one who helped teach me the ropes. I have a very, very good remarketing team.

AR: Now that you are involved in remarketing, how has the perception of remarketing changed as compared to when you were in the field?

Costabile: I think dealers have always seen used-vehicles as a good profit center, but that business segment has really evolved over the years. It has become much more professional. Dealers realize that they make the bulk of their money from used vehicles and consequently, have become much more astute about their pre-owned operations. Over the years, I have seen dealers go out of business because they did not manage their used operations well. I definitely have gained a lot of respect for the remarketing operations.

More and more dealers understand the art of remarketing. In the past, they might have simply wholesaled the trade-ins, but now they are looking at those vehicles as part of their inventory mix. They have become much better at managing this as a core center of their business operations. We support that because we want all of our dealers to be profitable and our customers happy.

AR: Has the importance of remarketing also been recognized on the executive office side?

Costabile: I think so, and it is probably why I am in this position. I believe that corporate understands the value of remarketing to the health of the organization and the long-term health of the brand. My background is all retail and in developing strong dealers. I think I’m in this position today because of my background and GM’s commitment to all business segments, including remarketing.

I communicate every month with the heads of all the brands and let them know how their vehicles are performing at auction because it is critical that they know how their product is being received. They really appreciate that information.

We (GM) were a production driven company before, and quite frankly it bankrupted us … literally. We were over-producing vehicles and had to push rental companies to take them, and then we had to incentivize vehicles for retail so consumers would buy them. Now we are much more market-driven, and that has helped us keep our residuals higher. It is more of an overall market approach.

AR: You mentioned the bankruptcy. How did it affect you and others in GM?

Costabile: I think it was a very scary time for all of us. It was also difficult in that you had to shut plants and let people go. Coming out of it, we were very appreciative of what the government and taxpayers did for us. It was a very humbling experience for all of us who work for GM. We are very thankful that we have been given a second chance, and we are not going to take it for granted. We are much more humble in the way we approach our jobs. We want to make every decision count, and I believe we are thinking much more strategically. We have already had a second chance, and we know we won’t get a third one.

AR: What do you like to do outside of your job?

Costabile: (laughter) I do work some long hours, but I have two boys, ages 15 and 12, and it often seems all of my leisure activities are their activities! I think all parents with teenagers gladly commit their free time to their children. We enjoy baseball and basketball games and all of that stuff.
My oldest has learned how to fly.

AR: Do either you or your husband fly?

Costabile: No. But I do remember that when Andrew was a baby he was just infatuated with ceiling fans. My mom used to take him to a fan store as an outing! He has just loved airplanes since he was very little. He is passionate about it and wants to solo sometime soon.

AR: What else do you like to do?

Costabile: I like to read and travel, but with two teenage boys it seems like I have very little free time. Mostly we try to have as much family time as possible.
I try to play tennis as often as possible, and we also like to travel as a family … to see other areas, just like I did when I was younger. We try to do two family trips a year.

AR: Finally, do you still enjoy coming to work?

Costabile: I love coming to work … every single day. I’m passionate about what I do and have great people I work with. It is especially fun right now because we are reinventing ourselves. We get to try a lot of new ideas.

Jennifer Costabile is the general director of GM Fleet and Commercial Operations