I had lunch with Owen’s two years ago in his executive dining room and he seems like a decent person. His wife left him years ago and he ended up raising his girls.
I was talking to our account manager prior to the general election complaining about Obama. He stated that Owen’s and company had discussions with O’s camp and they assured CAT that they would be “business friendly”. Payback time I’m sure.
My first thought too
Jim Owens is a very decent intelligent guy. He has a fiduciary responsibility to respond to the President with moderate comments. It is not in the interest of shareholders to rock the boat. But, I also know that Cat managers believe that you have to cut jobs early in a down cycle.
They also had a long term strategy to eliminate UAW jobs by moving production out of Illinois. They just did that with the small engine plant move to Texas.