Former GM Tech Chief Mair Dies

Alex Mair, who once headed General Motors Co.'s technical staffs, died on Sunday in Florida. He was 91 years old.

A graduate of the General Motors Institute, Mair joined GM's Chevrolet unit in 1943 and eventually became the division's chief engineer for cars. He served three years each as general manager of GMC Truck & Coach and then Pontiac. He was promoted to group executive of GM technical staffs in 1978 and retired from that position in 1986.

The affable Mair was a blunt-talking executive who rejected a popular notion of the 1970s that poor vehicle quality was primarily the fault of an inattentive hourly workforce. Mair was vocal in fixing the blame on poor product design and bad manufacturing processes.

Mair also championed a relatively unconventional philosophy for his day: that improving vehicle quality reduces rather than increases costs.