While we were thrilled to hear that FoMoCo's executive vp Mark 
Fields has decided to use public transportation and not the Ford corporate jet when he flies each week back and forth from his home in Florida to the office in Dearborn, we also read in today's AUTOMOTIVE NEWS about a top GM executive who follows a schedule similar to Fields', but manages top pay for it himself out of his own salary ... And uses commercial airliners. We were happily surprised. Here's a guy from GM who not only talks the talk but ... Well, you know the rest ... (Photo -- GM's CFO Fritz Henderson pays for his own personal travel ... Well, he IS a money guy).
Here's how Jamie LaReau of AN tells the tale:
When Ford Motor executive Mark Fields announced today that he would stop taking the company jet for weekend trips home to Florida, I remembered a conversation I had with General Motors' Fritz Henderson.
Henderson, GM's CFO, also jets to Florida on weekends to be with his wife and daughter. We chatted about it one night over dinner at a restaurant in the Renaissance Center in Detroit.
Fritz is one of those globe-trotting executives who has had a succession of assignments in South America, Asia and Europe. Through it all, he has kept a house in Miami so he would not uproot his family.
When he moved to Detroit as company CFO in 2005, Henderson kept his Miami home so his daughter could go to high school there. He found a condo in Birmingham, Mich., to live in during the week.
Over appetizers and wine, Fritz described his grueling schedule of early-morning meetings, late-night sessions and twice-a-month stampedes to catch one of Northwest Airlines' Friday flights to Miami.
What? Huh? Did you say Northwest Airlines? I paused in shock. I said, "Fritz, you're a vice chairman of GM. I thought it was company policy that all of GM's vice chairmen had to fly the corporate jet -- even for personal trips."
Fritz paused and smiled slyly. He's a finance guy. He calculated that one round-trip flight from Detroit to Miami on a corporate jet costs GM about $50,000. That doesn't add up at a time when the company was cutting 35,000 jobs.
"One flight is equal to the salary of one job," he said at the time. "So I figure that I can fly commercial and save one job each time I do it."
That night, I called my mother and recounted the story to her. Her response was simple: "I like this guy. He's a good guy."
I had that conversation with Henderson nearly a year ago. A call to GM confirmed that Henderson still flies commercial and pays for his ticket out of his own pocket.
This year, Fritz's frequent flier miles might taper when his daughter graduates from high school. The family plans to move to the Detroit area, where Henderson grew up.
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