The head of Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. for the past year and a half is retiring, leaving the challenged automaker solely in the hands of an executive from its parent company in Japan.
Rich Gilligan, an auto veteran who started on the assembly lines, said he’s retiring to “smell the roses.”
Gilligan, who turns 63 in September, said he had planed to retire sooner but was recruited to run the North America operation of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. in early 2005.
He replaced Finbarr O’Neill, a former Hyundai Motor America Inc. executive tapped for his turnaround skills. O’Neill abruptly left Mitsubishi and now heads Dayton, Ohio-based The Reynolds and Reynolds Co.
Gilligan originally was hired as head of Mitsubishi’s Illinois plant eight years ago with orders to turn it around or shut it down. The plant had lost money for 10 straight years and was plagued by a highly publicized sexual harassment case.
Early this year, Hiroshi Harunari was named co-chief executive in Cypress alongside Gilligan. He now becomes sole chief executive.
Previously, Harunari was managing director of overseas operations for Tokyo-based Mitsubishi.
The Cypress operation is in the midst of a multiyear turnaround plan. Sales, which grew rapidly in the first few years of the decade, started falling in 2003 with a recall scandal in Japan and risky financing in the U.S.
Mitsubishi’s May sales were off 12% from a year earlier.
