Former GM Engineer and Executive David Hill has passed away at the age of 97.
According to a report from Automotive News, Hill passed away on July 7th, 2024 in Royal Oak, Michigan. He is survived by his daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Born in London, England, Hill was adopted by his parents through an ad in the local paper when he was just six weeks old. When he was three years old, his family temporarily moved to Canada, where they would spend the next 10 years before moving back to England just in time for WWII.
Despite growing up in extreme poverty and hardship, as well as losing his adopted father at 14 years of age, Hill performed well in school. In fact, he won scholarships to private schools while working night shifts at factories and catching rabbits for food. With that in mind, Hill earned a scholarship at the General Motors Institute (GMI) in Flint, Michigan, truly kick-starting his decorated career at The General where he traveled back to North America in 1948.
Following a brief stint at Ford, Hill returned to General Motors to work as an engineer at the Tech Center in Warren, Michigan. From there, he spent more than 30 years with the Detroit-based automaker and held a variety of positions, including Chief Information Officer, Founder and President of Motors Trading Corporation, and Executive Vice President of General Motors Overseas Corporation.
Interestingly, Hill’s skills lead to a special assignment from GM President John Gordon to evaluate the prospect of electrical discharge machining replacing electrochemical etching processes. This change was eventually adopted throughout GM production processes by the late 1960s. In addition, he was named Information Systems Manager at Chevy in 1969.
It’s worth noting that Hill also served as Executive Director of planning for GM Service Parts Operations and the ACDelco division. Hill retired in 1992.
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Comments
Is this the same Dave Hill who was Chief Engineer on the C5 and C6 Corvettes? He did an awesome job on those cars! Either way….RIP Dave and thanks for your ideas and work at The General!
No