Ford Forums banner

USA:When alternative fuel guru speaks up, Bill Ford listens

1K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  Stacy94PGT 
#1 ·

Mary Ann Wright, left, checks out the Escape Hybrid with NASCAR driver Kurt Busch. Ford created her position as chief engineer to advance its development of environmentally responsible technologies.

When alternative fuel guru speaks up, Bill Ford listens

Mary Ann Wright holds sway over '05 Escape Hybrid

By Eric Mayne / The Detroit News

Mary Ann Wright, center, presides over a meeting with her team of engineers at the Ford Development Center in Dearborn. She is a committed environmentalist and vocal supporter of the auto industry.

DEARBORN — If there’s anyone inside Ford Motor Co. with the nerve to tell Bill Ford what to do, it’s Mary Ann Wright.

The feisty 42-year-old Dearborn native is chief engineer behind the 2005 Escape Hybrid, one of the most closely watched and technically challenging new vehicles in years. So she had little patience when the chairman and CEO’s assistant informed her he was extending his test drive of one of her few Escape Hybrid prototypes for a week.

“No, he’s not,” Wright said.

A short time later, she corralled the great-grandson of Henry Ford in the parking lot of Ford’s Product Development Center. He playfully dangled the vehicle’s keys in front of her, saying: “You’re not getting these back.”

He was wrong.

And so too were the doubters who didn’t believe Wright and her team could pull off the Escape Hybrid, which goes on sale in September and has been winning early praise from critics.

If environmentally friendly SUV seems a little contradictory, perhaps its fitting that Wright is in charge. She’s a bit of a paradox herself.

She has degrees in economics and engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Wayne State University. But her office walls are dominated by children’s art work.

A committed environmentalist, she is also a vocal supporter of the auto industry. Like her dog, a Rottweiler mix, Wright can be cuddly and tough.

“Mary Ann is one of the most energetic, resourceful and tenacious people I’ve worked with,” says Phil Martens, chief of product development for Ford.

Her administrative assistant is more succinct. “If she has to get down and dirty, people get scared sometimes,” Shalla Woodruff said.

Ford created her position to advance and accelerate its development of environmentally responsible technologies, a move that comes as activists are turning the Blue Oval into a bull’s-eye.

The average fuel economy of Ford’s U.S. car and truck lineup is 21.9 mpg — last among the top six automakers for the fifth straight year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The poor performance has prompted environmental groups Global Exchange and the Rainforest Action Network to launch repeated ad campaigns to shame the automaker into improving car and truck fuel economy.

Wright wants to bridge the historical gap between scientist and engineer — a cultural divide as great as the distance between Ford’s Dearborn research lab and its proving grounds in Romeo.

Within the next few years, Ford will launch at least two more hybrids — a version of the Mercury Mariner SUV that debuts this fall and a midsize Ford car. The automaker is testing fleets of fuel cell vehicles that run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor.

The huge task of developing and commercializing alternative fuel vehicles and potential products such as hydrogen internal combustion engines fall on the diminutive Wright, a stepmother to four children, a fitness fanatic, obsessive recycler and a zealous vegan who often functions on about just four hours of sleep.

“Everything I do, I do to an extreme,” Wright admits. “I have a complete commercial gym in my house. Vegetarianism wasn’t enough, I had to be a vegan.”

At times, she can be a little too focused on whatever she is doing. Recently, while walking her dog and talking on her cell phone, Wright looked up to discover she was lost in her own subdivision.

Because of her own beliefs — she doesn’t buy products with excessive packaging and avoids those tested on animals — she has some insight into the minds of environmentalists who chastise Ford for lagging behind Toyota Motor Co.p. and Honda Motor Co. in marketing hybrids.

But she says critics need to be more realistic.

“I recognize when I get up in the morning that I’m going to do some things to the Earth that probably aren’t very kind,” Wright says of her role at Ford. “What we need to do is minimize that. And wherever you can, to reverse it.

“The reality is, we can’t all ride bicycles. What we don’t have to be is irresponsible.”

Wright won over some critics with a speech at a recent meeting of Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. The annual conference helps businesses focus on addressing the demands of an estimated 55 million people whose guiding principle — environmental responsibility — account for $200 billion in annual spending.

“She went over really well,” says Brad Warkins, president of Conscious Media Inc., which organizes the conference. And Wright was outnumbered — the lone automotive engineer in a room populated by organic food distributors.

“It’s really hard to walk in both worlds,” Warkins says.

Such diplomacy could explain why Wright still has a job after busting Bill Ford. How did she get him to give up the keys to that test vehicle?

“I promised to build him one,” she says.


John T. Greilick / The Detroit News

Mary Ann Wright
Age: 42

Title: Ford Motor Co. director of sustainable mobility technologies and hybrid vehicle programs; chief engineer of Escape Hybrid

Education: Bachelor's degree in economics and international business, master of science degree in engineering from University of Michigan; master of business administration from Wayne State University.

Career: Joined Ford in 1988; launched Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest minivans, launched 2000-01 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable; served as Lincoln's chief engineer for luxury sedans.
 
See less See more
2
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top