SAAB in the Rearview Mirror

Joining the Podcast this week is ex-Saab District Sales Manager and 9-3 Product Manager Doug Blank. Doug’s interesting career includes his time as a Radarman on a U.S. Navy Destroyer to a vehicle painter on the Jeep assembly line and several jobs at Saab as a District Sales Manager and the 9-3 Product Manager. Doug has some great stories ranging from the questionable color choices out of Sweden where white was only for Police cars and not for retail to attempts to get OnStar and XM Radio into the vehicles to having his new 35 mile 9000 Aero totaled just a few moments after picking it up!

Please enjoy my conversation with Doug.

Original Parts Help Line Creator Eric Weiss joins me this week on the Podcast. Eric started at Saab as a “Senior” Consumer Relations person where I followed in his footsteps as he transitioned shortly to my future role running the Parts Help Line. He then became a field Service Representative calling on 15 dealers in Connecticut and Rhode Island. A short time later he moved up to the Eastern Region Service Manager position. Eric regales us with some great stories ranging from the nightmare of the early 900 Sony radios, his interactions with CEO Bob Sinclair, visiting a dealer that also sold boats in the same showroom and transitioning to the “other side of the fence” working for Secor Automotive in New London, CT for the past 32 years where he can still be found today. Welcome Eric.

Joining me this week is long time Saab employee Dan David. Dan joined Saab in 1973 and finished his career in 2005. While at Saab he held several positions in Service, Warranty, Parts, Product Development, Customer Retention, Marketing and many combinations of them throughout his career in the USA and Sweden. He has many interesting tales of working with Saab USA founder Ralph Millet and many subsequent Saab Presidents including Bob Sinclair, Sten Helling, Jim Crumlish and Dan Chasins just to name a few. He credits his terrific teams with hard work and friendship that made his time at Saab an enjoyable experience. Dan talks about the early days at Saab where having just one word processor was a luxury, communicating with Sweden by Telex and operated assisted phone calls. He experienced first hand the meteoric rise of the company in the 1980’s to the GM takeover emphasizing the term “outsourcing” of numerous departments in the 1990’s. Please enjoy.

My guest this week is another dear friend and longtime Saab employee-Dale David. Dale worked numerous jobs at Saab including Warranty Claims Processor and Supervisor, West Coast Service and Parts Representative, Sales Trainer and Facilities Brand Image and Design Manager. Dale talks about her love of Saab Cars, her time “behind the windshield” as a Field Rep, her true feelings about Saab Way training, letters from several celebrity Saab fans, missing a dear mutual friend and life after Saab working for Nissan and Hyundai. Welcome Dale David to the Podcast.

This week’s guest is long term Saab employee John Libbos. John was with Saab from 1987 to 2012. His many jobs included several Technical Services positions and later as Project Manager for the 9-5 and 9-4X. He also spent several years working in Sweden in the late 90’s as the Aftersales Project leader for the Saab 9-5 being fully immersed in Swedish language and culture. John was stationed in most all locations of Saab headquarters including the infamous GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Post Saab he worked as a contractor for Maserati at Road Atlanta and as a training instructor traveling all over the USA and Canada. Please enjoy.

This week’s guest is former Saab Parts Director Doug Williams. Doug worked in the Norcross, GA headquarters in the late 90’s through his early retirement in 2001. During his tenure the parts division moved over 100 million in parts and accessories per year with the help of a dedicated staff. Innovative ideas were put into place such as overnight dedicated delivery to dealers of parts and Saab badged delivery trucks traveling all over the Northeastern USA. My favorite was the view of a Gripen fighter jet afterburner on the back doors of the trucks. Doug also talks about his 25 years with Jaguar prior to joining Saab and many of the celebrities he met in his career.

I am joined in this week’s episode by long time Saab employee Gary Dagesse. Gary has had numerous field and management positions at Saab. He started in the early 90’s and stayed up until almost the very end of the Spyker years in 2011. He also worked for Ford, Porsche, Jaguar/Land Rover and Nissan and talks about his experiences in the non-Saab world. He also just recently completed a lifelong bucket list goal by visiting all 30 baseball stadiums ending up in Toronto at the Rogers Center, formerly the Skydome where his wife arranged a nice surprise for his birthday.

One of my many ex-bosses, my mentor, my sometimes life coach and most of all my friend, Mike Raflowitz joins me on the Podcast. Mike had a long and varied career at Saab ranging from Field Representative to operating Saab of Japan (thus the Saab Japanese intro). Mike "Raf" is fun to talk to and is a great story teller and he has some great ones from almost running over a group of astronomers in a Saab to illegally crossing the Finnish border into Russia! Enjoy.

This episode's guest is former Saab Training Department member Dave Kapitulik.  "Kap" details his road to being an educator and training instructor/course designer at Saab Automobiles. 

Join me for our first episode featuring ex-Saab Field Representatives John Ritter and John Sokol. We discuss how each became interested in the automotive business, their long careers at Saab, their favorite meetings, brushes with celebrity, life after Saab and much more.