John Heinricy, Director High Performance Vehicle Operations, has elected to retire after 38 years of service with General Motors. John received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 197 and a masters in business administration from Michigan State University in 1985. John began his GM career in 1970 as a college-graduate-in-training with Chevrolet Motor Division in Warren. In 1979 John was named development engineer with Chevrolet at the Milford Proving Ground and became assistant staff engineer at Milford in 1981. He was promoted to Product Engineering Manager for the Chevrolet-Pontiac-GM of Canada Engineering Group in 1985, and became Vehicle Development Manager for the Corvette platform in 1989. In 1993 John was appointed Continuous Improvement Manager for the Chevrolet Corvette and then became Assistant Chief Engineer for the Corvette at the Midsize and Luxury Car Group. In 1997 he was named Chief Engineer for the Camaro and Firebird, and Director of Vehicle Dynamics for GM cars and trucks in 2001.

John has been very active in racing Chevrolet Corvettes, Camaros, and Pontiac Firebirds professionally since 1984 and has won 15 driving championships, including four professional. He was a member of the team that broke three world speed records in 1990 driving a Corvette ZR1, and drove one of the C5R Corvette race cars in GT2 competition

 

Whoa. First Wallace now this.

 

I believe that is a major loss for GM Performance. Based on his college graduation dates I think he is only about 60 or so, far younger than any GM mandatory retirement age.

 

Understatement of the decade right there.

Geez, this gets worse every day.....

 

Yeah, but if you're 60, and you can retire, wouldn't you? I'll bet he's very comfortable financially. Assuming he has a family to be with... I can't blame the guy for retiring.

 

The first time I talked to John was probably around 1989. I've spoken to him afew times since. *I* always got the impression that he really loved what he was doing. I can't imagine that he retired simply because he was 60(ish).

 

A lot of good people leaving GM right now. Not a good sign in my opinion.

 

[Tom Tucker]See if you can have the sound guy cue up the (bomb whistle, splat!), followed by a (wha wha whaaaaa)...[/Tom Tucker]...

 

any idea yet who is taking that position?

 

Most of the folks taking the retirement package have over 30 years at GM. I've gone through the same thing with many of my colleagues. Everyone has to retire at some point. When your company is putting money on the table to let you retire today by tossing in extra incentives to do so, its hard to say no.

 

Thanks for being involved with so many of the cars we love, John. Enjoy retirement.

 

I understand, and I don't blame them. I also don't mean to suggest GM's current situation is the reason they are leaving. More that GM is losing a lot of knowledge with all of these people retiring. We are going through the same thing where I work.

 

Yeah, this is just my personal opinion.....


With all that, I'd guess if there were a C7 around the corner, a Z/28 around the corner, or anything like that, I'm sure Heinricy would have wanted to hang around just alittle longer for them.

 

Definitely worthy of the front page of this web site! Just updated it.

We'll miss ya, John!

 

Sorry to see him go but I'm glad he put his time and effort into some of GM's best products over the years and may have ended with the Camaro.
I know for many big 3 employees faced with a great deal to retire right now they have to weight this option and their desire to keep working and not knowing if the next offer will be as good.