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SOUTHFIELD–The Lawrence Technological University community is mourning the loss of Lloyd E. Reuss, who died Friday at the age of 86.
Reuss has served as a member of the LTU Board of Trustees since 1978 and was chairman of the board from 1993 to 2014.
During a 36-year career with General Motors, Reuss held many key positions, including president from 1990 to 1992, leading North American operations and worldwide components. Earlier, he had been director of engineering of the Chevrolet Division, general manager of the Buick Division, and executive vice president in charge of North American automotive operations.
“In addition to his incredible career in management and engineering, Mr. Reuss devoted much of his life to improving education and providing opportunities for many. We’re particularly grateful for his 45 years of leadership serving our students and programs at Lawrence Tech,” LTU President Tarek M. Sobh said.
Source: GM
Reuss was born in 1936 near Belleville, Ill., a rural community of 20,000 southeast of St. Louis. He was one of two sons, and his father was a dealer for Chevrolet, Ford-Ferguson farm implements, and Philco radios. From an early age Mr. Reuss loved automobiles and vacationed in the Detroit area.
“I grew up in the business—dealership mechanics, finance and insurance, and how to sell and service,” he said in a 2009 interview.
His earliest favorite car was a 1950 Chevrolet coupe that he customized and enhanced its performance. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1957, when he joined GM. Diverted by the draft to a three-year stint in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Germany, he returned to the GM Tech Center in 1960.
“I wanted to go into a car division and Chevrolet was the biggest, making everything except glass and tires,” he recalled. “It was a great time to be at the company; everything was expanding.” He was chief engineer of the trendsetting first Camaro.
About his 45 years with LTU, he said that “Lawrence Tech is second-to-none in providing outstanding leaders with a global view. Lawrence Tech practices four great philosophies that are like the four legs that provide stability to a stool: theory and practice, agility, leadership, and innovation.”
Reuss saw the university’s biggest challenge as marshalling its focus in a difficult environment. “(We have to) be agile but have a depth of understanding in what to go after. We’re encouraging more interdisciplinary activity across the several colleges. Smallness is an opportunity—keeping the focus on what we do well and want to be leaders in, and then finding individuals interested in supporting that financially. I would argue that we have the ability.”
In leading the trustees, Reuss was instrumental in guiding the university during the tenures of four of LTU’s eight presidents. His goal in choosing trustees was to “find an individual who is a leader in an area of expertise in which we need leadership. We want trustees who are passionate and who believe in theory and practice, and who are willing to engage for more than a three-year term.”
Reuss had broad board experience, also serving as a trustee of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Cranbrook Educational Community, and chair of the board of the Cranbrook Institute of Science. He was a trustee of Vanderbilt University and the board of visitors of the business school at Duke University. He served without compensation as executive dean of the Center for Advanced Technologies and chaired the Advisory Board of Focus: HOPE, a Detroit-based non-profit whose aim is to overcome racism and poverty by providing education and training for underrepresented minorities and others.
He told a reporter in 2009, “I spent the first 40 years of my career developing automobiles. After I retired, I’m helping individuals develop themselves to be the best they possibly can be.”
Active in promoting the education of urban youth, he was on the advisory board for Detroit Cornerstone Schools. Among other educational and cultural institutions benefitting from his leadership were the Detroit Symphony and Orchestra Hall.
His many awards include being named a Michiganian of the Year in 1997 by the Detroit News and receiving the Engineering Society of Detroit Foundation’s Leadership Award and SAE International’s Medal of Honor. Reuss was a member of Pi Tau Sigma, the international honor society for mechanical engineers, and Tau Beta Pi, the world’s oldest honor society for engineers. He was graduate of the senior executive course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Doctor of Management degree honoris causa from Lawrence Tech in 1991, and in 2015 the University named its third residence hall in his honor. He was also inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame as what officials there called “a fighter for equal opportunity in engineeirng.”
Reuss was predeceased by wife, Maurcine. They have two children–one of whom, Mark, followed in his father’s footsteps and is now GM president–and many grandchildren.
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