DETROIT -- John J. Riccardo, the former accountant nicknamed The Flamethrower who rose rapidly to become chairman and CEO of Chrysler and later helped recruit Lee Iacocca to become his successor as the company’s fortunes quickly soured in the late 1970s, died on Saturday. He was 91.
Riccardo died after attending a University of Michigan basketball game in Ann Arbor, Mich. His son, Rev. John Riccardo Jr., eulogized his father Sunday during Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel church in Plymouth, Mich.
"My dad is the greatest man I ever met, and I met (Pope) John Paul many times," Rev. Riccardo said during his homily. "He’s the greatest man I ever met, not because of his career; not because of all the gifts he had; he’s the greatest man I ever met because of his faith."
Riccardo’s climb through the management and executive ranks at Chrysler was one of the speediest ever at a Detroit automaker. But he abruptly retired as chairman and CEO at age 55 in September 1979 as an ailing Chrysler aggressively courted Congress and the Carter administration for a financial lifeline.
His unexpected retirement came about 48 hours after Chrysler was rebuffed by U.S. Treasury Secretary G. William Miller for $1.2 billion in federal loan guarantees. Miller had dismissed the request, detailed in a 102-page survival plan crafted by Riccardo, as "way out of line."
Physically exhausted by Chrysler’s woes and his role as architect of the company’s campaign to secure a government rescue, Riccardo chose to leave because, in his mind and the minds of many, he had become closely associated with the past management of a troubled company.
“It would be most unfair to the new management and to the employees of Chrysler if my continued presence as board chairman should in any way hinder the final passage of our request for federal loan guarantees,” he said at the time.
Riccardo had been hospitalized with a cardiac ailment months earlier in May 1979, and doctors advised him at that time to retire immediately.
‘Real hero’
