Ford Puts Emphasis On Customers

Ford Motor Co. has filled two more top jobs with executives from consumer products companies as part of President Jac Nasser’s campaign to make the No. 2 automaker more responsive to its customers.

Ford on Friday named Louise Goeser vice president for quality. Goeser comes from Whirlpool Corp., where she was vice president for corporate quality and general manager of the refrigerator product team. Her appointment came one day after Ford named General Electric Co. executive George Murphy as general marketing manager for the Ford division.

Goeser, 45, is the third female vice president at Ford. She replaces Ken Dabrowski, who retired in October. In the interim, the responsibility for quality issues was handled by Richard Parry-Jones, vice president for product development. Before joining Whirlpool, Goeser was a Westinghouse Electric Corp. executive.

Murphy, 43, is vice president of worldwide product management for GE Lighting in Cleveland and previously worked for Coca-Cola Co. At Ford, he will replace Darryl Hazel, who was named executive director of the Ford customer service division of North America.

The appointments of Goeser and Murphy are effective March 1.

Ford has been the most aggressive of the Detroit automakers in going outside the company and, in some cases, outside the traditionally insular industry for executive talent.

Nasser, who took over as president and chief executive at the start of the year, has said he wants to take Ford beyond just engineering and manufacturing vehicles and place more emphasis on satisfying customers and anticipating their needs.